'How India Loves: Love Stories From The World’s Largest Democracy' | Excerpt

👍The whole idea of dating apps was to change lives for the better. Instead, the dating apps have resulted in an epidemic of choice, turning human beings as completely replaceable and disposable as a box of tissue paper or a bar of soap. We are all products of consumer goods and consumer goods ourselves. Cheap, disposable consumer goods. Whether we are creating and consuming social media content or approaching love. I feel reluctant to even use this word anymore; it is an insult, and anyway, people now use ‘like’ for their romantic (if they can even be called romantic) interests but also openly use it for objects, things and animals.

🌊In fact, terms that previous generations (like yours truly-grandma self) used, like ‘carrying on’, ‘going steady’, ‘in a relationship’, ‘girlfriend/boyfriend’ and ‘propose’ are becoming less and less frequent. All nincompoops talk about are sex exploits, and their new vocabulary consists of terms such as ‘cushioning’, ‘breadcrumbing’, ‘ghosting’, ‘situationships’, ‘poly’ and the infinite types of ‘poly’ (vee, triad, quad, lap sitting, kitchen table, parallel, etc.). When asked if the person they are dating is a partner, some people even respond with ‘define partner/dating’.

🗹In America, you can buy products and return them for a full refund within a generous return period, usually thirty to ninety days. No explanations are necessary. It’s about trying out products and seeing what works for you. This is exactly what is happening today when people have been reduced to swipes.

ꦜShyamal, a Bengaluru-based engineer, told me that this was exactly how dating apps had killed his confidence. ‘It is anyway always easier for women to get men rather than the other way around. Pretty women even more so. A lot of women use this to their advantage, using guys to increase their own sense of self-worth and confidence, and suddenly disappear. All of this is fine, but it leads us regular “simple good guys” on and breaks our confidence too,’ he says. This has caused him a lot of stress, and he has swapped dating for tennis, gym, video games and more work. ‘I pleasure myself, but honestly, the need is less and less since I am so busy and satisfied with my other pursuits. Much, much better than these girls who lead you on and kill your confidence with a swipe, block(ing) or ghost(ing).’

𝓡Throughout this book, we are seeing just how stressful and debilitating modern Indian love is, as also realise the many single women and the many simple men like Shyamal who are actually looking for commitment. All illnesses need a diagnosis first. And now, thanks to the West, we have imported diagnosis to help us do that.

𒊎Shyamal is choosing singlehood and celibacy. Many women choosing singlehood and celibacy would say the same thing of guys that Shyamal says of women. We touched upon so many such stories, especially in the chapters on sex. I have lost count of female friends who say men only lead them on for sex, and it would be nicer if they were honest upfront without leading them on. But, of course, if they did, many women (and all the ones I know) may not entertain them for even a second. So let’s do what we grandmas did in other matters of greater scale (like economics, governance, education, politics, etc.); let’s just blame ‘the system’. Modern love in India, as in the West, is a mighty mess – created by, of and for nincompoops. Like democracy itself, love, sex and relationships in the world’s largest democracy are a giant mess. I mean, how could they not be.

🧸A Bollywood director, all of whose movies are modern love stories set against the intricacies and loneliness of urban lives, tells me about his experiences as an Indian man on dating apps (which too shaped his work). Like Shyamal, he too has quit them, even though, unlike Shyamal, he went on some wonderful dates and hookups. His problem is something else. ‘I gave up on dating apps a few years ago when I realised that the game was turning us into players,’ he says. ‘Even when we met perfectly fun people, we would go back and continue to swipe on the app. Even if we didn’t, they (the fun people we met) would, or we might get a fresh match from an old swipe.’ Hooked on to the Aladdin-like magic of swipes producing dates, we soon became the people we hated – people who treated other people as dispensable options.

🧸Dates became a function of who is available to meet at the same time that we were free. Our attention spans dwindled as we always found more fish in the sea. And the force of habit made us catch and release. ‘Sometimes we hurt and sometimes we got hurt. If we want something that feels less of a game, the first step would be to delete dating apps and “deaddict” oneself from the habit of trying to find someone better than the last one – like we were judging a talent show.’

ওCasual sex, hookups and affairs too are byproducts of dating apps and are everywhere. It’s very much like addictive consumerism, where we just hop from one product to the other, thinking the next one will be better. It is easier to keep moving than to face ourselves in the mirror and see what we are doing to ourselves and others. What we are doing is deeply detrimental to our own mental health as well as the other’s, both the one rejected and the one shopping for the next. Ultimately, as a society, we are becoming dysfunctional, impatient, unforgiving and careless, forgetting what even makes a relationship – vulnerability, generosity, patience, forgiveness, seeing the best in people and attention.

(Excerpted with permission from Bloomsbury India)