How dating apps are turning romance into a consumerist commodity in Indian cities – eShe

Author, journalist and columnist Rituparna Chatterjee spent four years collecting real-life stories of love in India, across geographies and socioeconomic divides. The result is How India Loves (Bloomsbury India, INR 699), an exploration of love, loneliness, and longing in the world’s largest democracy.

A former foreign correspondent and columnist for The Economic Times, Chatterjee’s previous book was The Water Phoenix (2020), a magic realism memoir on an abused child’s lifelong journey to understand love.

In this excerpt from How India Loves, she looks at the recent boom in dating apps and what it says about love in an increasingly consumerist society.

Published with permission from Bloomsbury India.

By Rituparna Chatterjee

If we have noticed anything so far, it is – at the risk of sounding like a Hindutva grandma; well, I am a Hindu grandma (slight difference) and hence even more ancient – that everything from the West has affected, if not completely transformed, love, sex and relationships in India.

Most stark among the changes is the rise of BDSM, taboos, kinks and fetishes, the ideas for which have come from pornography. And, of course, the less scandalous, completely open prevalence of dating apps.

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 30 to 90 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.

Shyamal, 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).”

Shyamal is choosing singlehood and celibacy. Many women choosing singlehood and celibacy would say the same thing of guys that Shyamal says of women. 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.”

Casual 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.

After many casual sex encounters that they have lost count of, several of my male friends are tired and bored and have chosen to be celibate, saying it’s less complicated. No wonder self-partnership, sologamy and celibacy are on the rise.

Women, with a lot more baggage from patriarchy in general, are struggling to feel safe enough to orgasm and are tired of men who are too immature to commit emotionally. All of this has led to the rise of sex toys.

Celibacy, abstinence, giving up on people… these are ultimately the same reactions as the modern trend of minimalism and “Marie Kondo-ing your life” (as the phrase goes, after the famous Japanese organising consultant) is to the fatigue, overwhelm and emptiness of mass consumerism. For no amount of shopping, sex, people, places and things can fill one’s internal void.

In The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, the American psychologist Barry Schwartz has addressed the long-term negative consequences of having infinite options. A friend, who is a professor of economics, had recommended it to me when I had said that all of this beautiful American consumerism was killing me on a daily basis, from choosing simple fever medication and shampoo to products, schools and activities for my son.

The book described everything perfectly. An overabundance of options actually leads to anxiety, indecision, dissatisfaction and, eventually, complete decision paralysis. Today, human beings too need to be added to the list of products.

Lead image: Delmaine Donson / Getty Images Signature / Canva