Shailaza's Blog

Tag: internet romance

  • Dating Game App(tly) Played

    Today, it is easy to be with someone without a relationship. The dating apps are almost like a television remote where you can change channels whenever you want. Despite this, the dating scene seems to have become an apocalypse in the waiting as gleaned from the article titled “Tinder and the dating apocalypse” published in Vanity Fair.

    What women want?


    “Since the emergence of flappers and “moderns” in the 1920s, the debate about what is lost and gained for women in casual sex has been raging, and is raging still—particularly among women. Some, like Atlantic writer Hanna Rosin, see hookup culture as a boon: “The hookup culture is … bound up with everything that’s fabulous about being a young woman in 2012—the freedom, the confidence.” But others lament the way the extreme casualness of sex in the age of Tinder leaves many women feeling de-valued. “It’s rare for a woman of our generation to meet a man who treats her like a priority instead of an option,” wrote Erica Gordon on the Gen Y Web site Elite Daily, in 2014.”
    I have always believed that despite all the new age feminism, most women are emotional beings for whom physical intimacy is a result of an emotional and mental connection with their partners. Many of them still believe in waiting for someone who will connect with them not just on the physical level but also on an emotional level. However, the exodus of men to the dating apps seem to have reduced the possibility of developing an emotional bond which has resulted in short lived marriages, increased divorces and more extra marital affairs.


    “It is the very abundance of options provided by online dating which may be making men less inclined to treat any particular woman as a “priority,” according to David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in the evolution of human sexuality. “Apps like Tinder and OkCupid give people the impression that there are thousands or millions of potential mates out there,” Buss says. “One dimension of this is the impact it has on men’s psychology. When there is a surplus of women, or a perceived surplus of women, the whole mating system tends to shift towards short-term dating. Marriages become unstable. Divorces increase. Men don’t have to commit, so they pursue a short-term mating strategy. Men are making that shift, and women are forced to go along with it in order to mate at all.”
    The obvious change in men’s mentality has also caused many women to reprogram their own value system. After all, what’s the point of running after something which does not even exist? In this case, it is romance and fidelity!
    “I think that iPhones and dating apps have really changed the way that dating happens for our generation,” says Stephanie, the one with an arm full of bracelets.
    “There is no dating. There’s no relationships,” says Amanda, the tall elegant one. “They’re rare. You can have a fling that could last like seven, eight months and you could never actually call someone your ‘boyfriend.’ [Hooking up] is a lot easier. No one gets hurt—well, not on the surface.”They give a wary laugh.
    They say they think their own anxiety about intimacy comes from having “grown up on social media,” so “we don’t know how to talk to each other face-to-face.” “You form your first impression based off Facebook rather than forming a connection with someone.”

    ‘The I don’t care” line
    With most men on dating apps to have a good time, women don’t have an option but to follow them. However, subduing their natural emotional instinct and putting on a ‘I don’t care” face is also a daunting prospect for many.
    “When it comes to hooking up, they say, it’s not as simple as just having sex. “It’s such a game, and you have to always be doing everything right, and if not, you risk losing whoever you’re hooking up with,” says Fallon, the soft-spoken one. By “doing everything right” she means “texting back too soon; never double texting; liking the right amount of his stuff,” on social media.
    “And it reaches a point,” says Jane, “where, if you receive a text message” from a guy, “you forward the message to, like, seven different people: ‘What do I say back? Oh my God, he just texted me!’ It becomes a surprise. ‘He texted me!’ Which is really sad.”
    “If he texts you before midnight he actually likes you as a person. If it’s after midnight, it’s just for your body,” says Amanda. It’s not, she says, that women don’t want to have sex. “Who doesn’t want to have sex? But it feels bad when they’re like, ‘See ya.’ ”
    “It seems like the girls don’t have any control over the situation, and it should not be like that at all,” Fallon says.
    “It’s a contest to see who cares less, and guys win a lot at caring less,” Amanda says.”


    Double Standards Kill Self Esteem
    So, does that mean that for men, nothing matters more than physical intimacy? Does it also imply that having emotions is a sign of weakness when it comes to women? Have the women just been reduced to pieces of meat or it is the new age feminism which believes women are equal to men in all respects including meaningless physical encounters?
    “Sex should stem from emotional intimacy, and it’s the opposite with us right now, and I think it really is kind of destroying females’ self-images,” says Fallon.
    “It’s body first, personality second,” says Stephanie.
    “Honestly, I feel like the body doesn’t even matter to them as long as you’re willing,” says Reese. “It’s that bad.”
    “But if you say any of this out loud, it’s like you’re weak, you’re not independent, you somehow missed the whole memo about third-wave feminism,” says Amanda.”
    But does that mean these dating apps have helped in liberating women from the pre conceived age old notions of how women should behave even in the western world?
    I ask if they’re aware of the double standard that’s often applied to women when it comes to physical intimacy. “The double standard is real,” Nick says. “If I’m a guy and I’m going out with a different girl every night, my friends are gonna give me high-fives and we’re gonna crack a beer and talk about it. Girls do the same, but they get judged. I don’t want it to be like that, but sometimes the world is the way it is and I can’t change it, so I just embrace it.”

    All fun no relationships


    Life for women may not still be easy but the dating apps have made life easier for men because they no longer have to have a relationship to satisfy their physical desires.


    “They all say they don’t want to be in relationships. “I don’t want one,” says Nick. “I don’t want to have to deal with all that—stuff.”
    “You can’t be selfish in a relationship,” Brian says. “It feels good just to do what I want.”
    I ask them if it ever feels like they lack a deeper connection with someone.
    There’s a small silence. After a moment, John says, “I think at some points it does.”
    “But that’s assuming that that’s something that I want, which I don’t,” Nick says, a trifle annoyed. “Does that mean that my life is lacking something? I’m perfectly happy. I have a good time. I go to work—I’m busy. And when I’m not, I go out with my friends.”
    “Or you meet someone on Tinder,” offers John.
    “Exactly,” Nick says. “Tinder is fast and easy, boom-boom-boom, swipe.”

    FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)


    Earlier, once committed, people had to contend themselves with their partners. The more adventurous ones probably had a fling or two on the site. However, these days, the dating apps have been able to make both men and women believe that they can always find someone better, smarter and sexier when it comes to the opposite sex. Naturally, today’s generation doesn’t want to miss that chance. In that sense, it increases the fear of missing out.


    “They play the game the exact same way. They have a bunch of people going at the same time—they’re fielding their options. They’re always looking for somebody better, who has a better job or more money.” A few young women admitted to me that they use dating apps as a way to get free meals. “I call it Tinder food stamps,” one said.”
    But does that mean that both men and women will no longer be satisfied with whatever they have? Will they lose the bird in hand for the two in the bush?
    “According to Christopher Ryan, one of the co-authors of Sex at Dawn (2010), human beings are not sexually monogamous by nature. The book contends that, for much of human history, men and women have taken multiple sex partners as a commonly accepted (and evolutionarily beneficial) practice. The thesis, controversial and widely criticized by anthropologists and evolutionary biologists, didn’t keep the book from being an international best-seller; it seemed to be something people were ready to hear.”
    Though this article was about the dating scene in America, where people are considered more sexually liberated than India, it seems to be holding true in in India as well. Divorces, casual encounters, extra marital and no strings attached relationships are on a rise. More and more men and women are adapting the ‘bed and forget’ culture which allows them to ‘hook up’ with as many number of people as they like. Though many would say this is the new age liberalism but is it really? Is this a signal of better days or the end of trust, commitment and integrity which were an fundamental part of a beautiful relationship between two people?

    This article by Shailaza Singh was published in Rashtradoot’s Arbit section on 6 September 2021

  • The “Hookup” Song

    The article titled “Tinder and the Dawn of Dating Apocalypse” by Nancy Jo Sales which was published in the well known magazine Vanity Fair some years ago had sparked a social media war between Tinder and Vanity Fair. It talked about how Tinder and other such apps have inspired a new mindset where casual physical intimacy has become more important than romance, relationships and ‘happily ever afters’.

    (Italicized paragraphs are direct quotes from the article)

    ‘It’s a balmy night in Manhattan’s financial district, and at a sports bar called Stout, everyone is Tindering. The tables are filled with young women and men who’ve been chasing money and deals on Wall Street all day, and now they’re out looking for hookups.”
    I recently read this paragraph in an article titled ‘Tinder and the Dawn of Dating Apocalypse’ . Had I read this article some years back, I would have wondered about the meaning of the word ‘hookup’. However, now I know it means casual sexual encounters or even beginning of a relationship. The interesting bit is that when this article was published some years back, the people at Tinder, the well known dating platform had taken offense to it and had blasted Vanity Fair. In turn, Tinder was attacked by netizens, which resulted in such a backlash that Tinder’s CEO Chris Payne was replaced within 24 hours after the company’s official account went on tweeting spree against Nancy Joe Payne, the journalist who wrote the article.
    The article is quite interesting because it talks about the new age mindset of men and even women when it comes to dating.


    “Guys view everything as a competition,” he elaborates with his deep, reassuring voice. “Who’s slept with the best, hottest girls?” With these dating apps, he says, “you’re always sort of prowling. You could talk to two or three girls at a bar and pick the best one, or you can swipe a couple hundred people a day—the sample size is so much larger. It’s setting up two or three Tinder dates a week and, chances are, sleeping with all of them, so you could rack up 100 girls you’ve slept with in a year.”


    Tinderella Replaces Cinderella
    Gone are the days when life was as simple as Cinderella waiting for her Prince Charming. Today’s modern Casanovas don’t want to do the happily ever after. Infact, not even close. All they want is a ‘Tinderella’- someone they can bed and forget.


    “He says that he himself has slept with five different women he met on Tinder—“Tinderellas,” the guys call them—in the last eight days. Dan and Marty, also Alex’s roommates in a shiny high-rise apartment building near Wall Street, can vouch for that. In fact, they can remember whom Alex has slept with in the past week more readily than he can.”


    The death of romance


    If you look at the Indian scenario, most old time movies or even the new age ones, have some semblance of romance even if the guy is ultimately trying to entice the girl into physical intimacy. Time was spent in befriending or courting the girl. However, as the author says Tinder and other such apps have changed the dynamics, at least in the western world. To some, this game would appear more sinister than ever.


    “And yet a lack of an intimate knowledge of his potential sex partners never presents him with an obstacle to physical intimacy, Alex says. Alex, his friends agree, is a Tinder King, a young man of such deft “text game”—“That’s the ability to actually convince someone to do something over text,” Marty explains—that he is able to entice young women into his bed on the basis of a few text exchanges, while letting them know up front he is not interested in having a relationship.”
    But Marty, who prefers Hinge to Tinder (“Hinge is my thing”), is no slouch at “racking up girls.” He says he’s slept with 30 to 40 women in the last year: “I sort of play that I could be a boyfriend kind of guy,” in order to win them over, “but then they start wanting me to care more … and I just don’t.”
    “Dude, that’s not cool,” Alex chides in his warm way. “I always make a point of disclosing I’m not looking for anything serious. I just wanna hang out, be friends, see what happens … If I were ever in a court of law I could point to the transcript.” But something about the whole scenario seems to bother him, despite all his mild-mannered bravado. “I think to an extent it is, like, sinister,” he says, “ ‘cause I know that the average girl will think that there’s a chance that she can turn the tables. If I were like, Hey, I just wanna bone, very few people would want to meet up with you …


    A Changed Dating Game


    Does that mean that men can no longer be trusted when they show that they are interested in you or even when they utter those three magical words? Does this mean that romance as we know it is over and has simply become a convenient ploy to get cosy with a woman? What is the reason for this change?


    “I call it the Dating Apocalypse,” says a woman in New York, aged 29.
    As the polar ice caps melt and the earth churns through the Sixth Extinction, another unprecedented phenomenon is taking place, in the realm of sex. Hookup culture, which has been percolating for about a hundred years, has collided with dating apps, which have acted like a wayward meteor on the now dinosaur-like rituals of courtship. “We are in uncharted territory” when it comes to Tinder et al., says Justin Garcia, a research scientist at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. “There have been two major transitions” in heterosexual mating “in the last four million years,” he says. “The first was around 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, in the agricultural revolution, when we became less migratory and more settled,” leading to the establishment of marriage as a cultural contract. “And the second major transition is with the rise of the Internet.”
    People used to meet their partners through proximity, through family and friends, but now Internet meeting is surpassing every other form. “It’s changing so much about the way we act both romantically and sexually,” Garcia says. “It is unprecedented from an evolutionary standpoint.” As soon as people could go online they were using it as a way to find partners to date and have sex with. In the 90s it was Craigslist and AOL chat rooms, then Match.com and Kiss.com. But the lengthy, heartfelt e-mails exchanged by the main characters in You’ve Got Mail (1998) seem positively Victorian in comparison to the messages sent on the average dating app today.”


    Pressing the right button
    Indeed, internet has changed a lot of things in our world, including relationships. However, with the advent of mobile phones, getting someone by pressing a button has become all the more easy.


    “Mobile dating went mainstream about five years ago; by 2012 it was overtaking online dating. In February, one study reported there were nearly 100 million people—perhaps 50 million on Tinder alone—using their phones as a sort of all-day, every-day, handheld singles club, where they might find a sex partner as easily as they’d find a cheap flight to Florida. “It’s like ordering Seamless,” says Dan, the investment banker, referring to the online food-delivery service. “But you’re ordering a person.”


    Options Galore
    Food delivery apps and dating apps have one thing in common. Depending on your preferences, there are plenty to choose from and there is no dearth of options when it comes to the menu.


    “The comparison to online shopping seems an apt one. Dating apps are the free-market economy come to sex. The innovation of Tinder was the swipe—the flick of a finger on a picture, no more elaborate profiles necessary and no more fear of rejection; users only know whether they’ve been approved, never when they’ve been discarded. OkCupid soon adopted the function. Hinge, which allows for more information about a match’s circle of friends through Facebook, and Happn, which enables G.P.S. tracking to show whether matches have recently “crossed paths,” use it too. It’s telling that swiping has been jocularly incorporated into advertisements for various products, a nod to the notion that, online, the act of choosing consumer brands and sex partners has become interchangeable.”


    Instant Gratification
    When Maggi, was first advertised as instant noodles which cooked be cooked in ‘two minutes’, not many realized that the claim was simply a marketing gimmick. Cooking Maggi was more than a two minute job, sometimes, even ten minutes depending on the recipe. But Maggi could satisfy your hunger more quickly as compared to the painstaking ‘sabzi and roti’ which took time, effort and expertise, which is why it became more popular. The dating apps seem to be following a similar path.


    “It’s instant gratification,” says Jason, 26, a Brooklyn photographer, “and a validation of your own attractiveness by just, like, swiping your thumb on an app. You see some pretty girl and you swipe and it’s, like, oh, she thinks you’re attractive too, so it’s really addicting, and you just find yourself mindlessly doing it.” “Sex has become so easy,” says John, 26, a marketing executive in New York. “I can go on my phone right now and no doubt I can find someone I can have sex with this evening, probably before midnight.”


    …To be continued

    The Hook up song

    This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot’s Arbit section on Sunday, 5 September 2021

  • Net Time- Virtually Yours

    Most people would like to find their love online these days. They love the sense of adventure, thrill that comes with it. There are millions of options available no doubt. However, the net also has an abundance of scammers who are just waiting to ensnare those besotted with love!

    One goes, others come- Bus, Train and Chats!

    Sunita, 39 was quite upset. Her online friend had not been talking to her for an entire week now. They had been friends for over two months. He did not answer her calls and just sent a cryptic message saying, ‘will talk later’. One day, her friend Mansi came to meet her. ‘Why are you so upset?’ she asked. Sunita told her the issue. Mansi nonchalantly said, ‘he must have found someone more loaded. After all, its an investment of time!’

    Sunita revealed that her online friend had asked her for her photographs which she refused to give. Since then, he had become distant and kept saying that she did not trust him enough. Mansi nodded, ‘yes, he wanted to have a little bit of ‘fun’. When he could not get it from you, he decided to try his luck elsewhere. Remember, in real life or net, when one goes, other comes whether bus or train or even a chat friend.’

    Options Galore

    Dr. Anamika Papriwal, a psychologist says, ‘When one goes on apps like Tinder or TrulyMadly or Aisle, they are given an impression that there are plenty of options to choose from. It is like being in the biggest supermarket of the world where you have millions of options to choose from. So, you will always keep wondering if there is anything better than the one you currently have or if you don’t get the desired features from that product, you will have no qualms about leaving it and trying for the next best option. As a result, the relationships online are hardly long lasting unless you disconnect from the app once you have found the person you were looking for.’

    Need based transactions

    When Arunima 41, decided to come to India for two months, she knew she would be lonely without her husband and daughter. She comes here regularly to take care of her business and stays for months at a time. She says, ‘Every time I come here, I start scoring for people who are looking for a casual, no strings attached fling. After all, why should boys have all the fun? I have a family back home and I am not looking for any kind of melodrama or complications or monetary problems. There are many who are looking for the same thing and we get together. Once the two months are over, we bid adieu and promise to never be in touch again. So far this arrangement has worked for me quite well.’

    Kaveri Banerjee a psychologist based in Delhi says, ‘Online relationships are nothing but simple transactions that are a matter of convenience for most people. They are mostly need based and not based on emotions or long term. When the need is met, the people go their own separate ways.’

    Agrees Govind, 35, ‘I am a single guy who is not looking for long term. When I meet a girl online, I want to meet her immediately so that I can evaluate if we are a good fit. If she delays the meeting or does not want to meet before knowing me and chatting with me, I tell her that I don’t have either the time or the patience for such conversations.’

    Honey! I want your money

    Vihaan was 50-year-old widower, settled in Chandigarh. His sons and daughters were married and were living in different parts of the country and the world. Vihaan stayed alone in his house with his servants. One of his friends advised him to logon to Tinder, an app for single men and women. Vihaan liked the idea because he could look at prospective matches from the comfort of his house. He chanced upon Aparna, a single mother working in a not-for-profit organization (NGO). She was a 45-year-old divorcee who had a college going son. They instantly hit off and Aparna even introduced Vihaan to her son Nikhil.

    They talked for long hours on end on audio and video calls and Aparna told him how she had single-handedly raised Nikhil after her husband walked away with another woman. Vihaan felt he had met a kindred soul in Aparna. He talked to his friends and they advised him to go and meet his dream girl. Aparna readily agreed to the idea. Vihaan had booked his tickets for the following week. Before the day he was to travel to meet her, Vihaan got a call from Aparna at about 1 a.m. She told him that Nikhil had met with a serious accident and was in the ICU. He had lost a lot of blood and the doctors would not operate until she deposited 2 lakh rupees. She said she did not have that kind of cash and asked him to help. Vihaan asked her for her account number and promptly transferred 2 lakh rupees. After about five minutes, he received a ‘thanks’ on WhatsApp from her number. He tried calling but now her number is always switched off.

    Sonakshi was a 44-year-old single lady living with her parents in Hyderabad. She was a very successful entrepreneur who had been too busy for marriage during her youth. Now, she felt the need to share her life with someone. Her friends advised her to download a dating app. Soon, she got connected to Raghu, a businessman who was based in New York, USA. Raghu was an issueless divorcee who was looking for his soulmate. He was a great conversationalist and Sonakshi discovered that they could talk for hours on end about every topic in the world. After about two months, Raghu told Sonakshi that he will be coming to meet her. He wanted to marry her and take her back with him. Sonakshi’s joy knew no bounds. Raghu sent her pictures of all the expensive gifts including Apple iPad, diamond jewellery that he had purchased for her. Sonakshi’s friends warned her to be patient and not get blown away by such gestures. But Sonakshi could not wait. She was ready to meet her Prince Charming. On the day that Raghu was supposed to reach Mumbai, Sonakshi got a call on her phone. The man speaking on the other end said that he was calling from the customs department in Mumbai airport. He told her that Raghu has been arrested since he had items worth more than the permissible limit and unless he paid, they will not let him go. Sonakshi asked them to send the details where she could send the payment and the person sent her a link. She was asked to pay 1 lakh, which she immediately paid without even thinking. Then she got a call from the concierge at the hotel where Raghu’s stay was booked. She was told that though Raghu was supposed to make the payment to book the room, his phone was out of reach. So, they asked her to make the payment of 50,000 INR. They sent her the link and she made the payment. After sometime, she got a call from Raghu who told her that the custom’s issue was solved and he wanted a business class ticket from Mumbai to Hyderabad. He asked her to transfer 50,000 INR and said that he will return it as soon as he meets her. Sonakshi transferred the money. She later tried to call Raghu but since that time his phone has been switched off.

    Dr. Anamika Papriwal, a psychologist says, ‘I have heard of women talking to men for days and they asking them to pay their children’s fee or give them money for their daily expenditure. Many of these people who pull off such scams have an innate understanding of the human behaviour. They first befriend the person, establish trust with them and then spend time talking to them. Once the person starts trusting them, they start with small transactions which they promptly return to again establish trust. Once that is done, they move in for the kill. In a way, it is an addiction where the person gets addicted to the other person. You can get anything done from an addict who needs his daily dose. That is how this works!’

    Truelove.com

    However, not all is gruesome and gory in the world of online dating. There are stories where people have found true love too.
    Thirty-year-old Puja met Nikhil on a dating app. Initially, she thought he was quite arrogant and snobbish. However, when they started chatting, she realized that he and she shared the same dreams and values. Nikhil travelled to Baroda to meet Puja and her family. After a while, Puja too visited Nikhil and his parents in Lucknow. Soon, they were married and are now blessed with a baby boy.
    Arjun, a 35-year-old doctor living in Gurgaon had faced rejection from a lot of girls. Online, he met Shruti, an interior designer who was also living in Gurgaon.  Shruti was beautiful but suffering from self-image issues owing to her weight. They connected and realized that they had a lot in common. They got married after dating for two years and are still going strong.

    This article was published in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit on 2 June 2021.