{"id":8748,"date":"2016-02-18T11:00:54","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T05:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=8748"},"modified":"2019-03-26T16:54:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T11:24:22","slug":"why-ive-stopped-going-on-tinder-dates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/why-ive-stopped-going-on-tinder-dates\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I\u2019ve Stopped Going on Tinder Dates"},"content":{"rendered":"

I ressurected my account to be more pointed about who should swipe me left or right. But the problem wasn\u2019t my bio, strategy or the app.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to have loved and lost. It\u2019s another thing to have gone on a spree of Tinder dates and gained nothing at all. Not even a perspective on life.<\/p>\n

I had joined the app about 10 months ago and written about never even making it to a date 2 months later<\/a>. I\u2019ve had better luck (or strategy) since then, going on a bevy of dates across three seasonal changes. Now how did that happen? For one, I changed my strategy altogether. I knew I didn\u2019t want to waste a single bit of my data plan on unmoving conversations about my day or what I ate for lunch. I saw no consequence to a conversation about my weekend plans unless that included us doing something unusual (warehouse jams, community gardening and such?) or ironic (getting zonked and going boating in Ulsoor lake. That\u2019s still on my bucket list, by the way). Yeah, a girl can only dream.<\/p>\n

Yashraj films to Arthouse cinema: From Tindering in Europe to India<\/strong><\/p>\n

About the strategy, it was clear. My bio itself was edited to read that I wasn\u2019t into playing games and more into the good ol\u2019 straightforward meet and greet. Texts, emojis or forwards don\u2019t unravel shit about a person or even help us get a sense of their personality. I know it\u2019s a guilty indulgence of thedigivasi<\/em> but s\/texts couldn\u2019t be a more perfect example of building castles in the air. More than that, I started proposing to meet up as soon as I felt that we could string together a decent conversation. Meanwhile, some of my expectations, or even priorities, changed after Tindering across Europe. Using Tinder as a tourist or someone passing by is widely different from the regular experience of going out with someone in your own town. I might still recommend it as a tourist even though it\u2019s far from being perfect with an equal chance at a fling or a flake. Three countries. Two awesome dates. I had nothing to complain about.<\/p>\n

Of course, it is easier to be European in Europe or for that matter, with Europeans. I won\u2019t go into the obvious specifics that one would tend to compare but one thing remarkably stood different. The guys I met in Europe were interested in having a good time, whether that meant going for a party or meeting for drinks. More importantly, the good times were primarily or even solely aimed at the present, whether it was a conversation about the place we were at or dancing to the billboard hits at the local bar. It didn\u2019t pave the way for any spillover expectations (of course, I wasn\u2019t around long enough to have them) but more than that, it was pure instantaneous, en el momento<\/em>fun. And that was quite enough as far as my personal expectations vs reality vis.a.vis the app goes.<\/p>\n

On most of my Tinder dates in India, however, I felt a cultural pressure to get to know the person sitting as awkwardly across the table and figure out whether our wavelengths matched. Almost as if it was a screening test for the next round, which is God knows what. Case in point, I would always have to deal with the insatiable curiosity to establish whether I was from India or the North East. Invariably, the question would be followed by a note of apology: \u201cI hope you don\u2019t mind me asking\u201d. No, I don\u2019t mind you asking but tell me this: If you didn\u2019t know for sure until we met, were you afraid of making a racist slur or were you just making sure you had the appropriate stereotype in mind? This one guy, whose bio said he was not looking for hook ups, insisted I share more pictures with him on Whatsapp. Asked why, he told me because he was into chinks<\/em><\/a> (sic), swiftly after which he asked if it\u2019s okay for him to say that. I texted back saying no and politely (yet curtly) asked him to fuck off. He called me every single day after that for a week along with the same message, \u201cWanna meet for a drink?\u201d, which I\u2019m sure was a saved template for chinks<\/em>and non-chinks<\/em> alike in his phonebook.<\/p>\n

Tinder is the Netflix of dating<\/strong><\/p>\n

I dilly dallied on the app a lot before permanently disabling my account. That was before I got bored (and lonely, in every way) and ressurected my account to be more pointed about who should swipe me left or right. But the problem wasn\u2019t my bio, strategy or the app. Sneha Rajaram rightly said that we are the harbingers of the dating apocalypse<\/a>, as opposed to all this criticism it has come under of late. Tinder is merely our means, tools and innovation to enable this apocalypse.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, women in India are damned whether or not they use the app. For one, it\u2019s not like you have a lot of choices. Yes, there are a dime a dozen apps that I could try but it\u2019s only going to be the same people on it. Sure, dating services like FLOW seem to be booming in metro cities today. But to be only introduced to a highly filtered community of class, income level, exposure, work, education, caste and English accent feels like an oversimplification of our choices and exploration. Secondly, we\u2019re not in an age where we want to smell roses, let alone make any time for it. Between our busy work and social lives, the time and opportunities to meet people organically is fast fading away. Not even on a vacation, especially when it is meticulously planned as per your precious days of leave. Ten months into the app, the only reason I had to stick around was due to the lack of a more convenient option, like Netflix is to going out on a weekend night.<\/p>\n

Tinder isn\u2019t new to Indian culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have never been on a date from a matrimonial site but some of the Tinder dates I went on were as close as I ever want to get to that experience. The rigmarole of talking about what you do, where you live, what kind of life you lived or what your parents do felt repeatetive, sometimes even practiced. Arranged marriages in India are the pioneers of swiping photos in different bins, only with a stronger intent to settle down. Not that I\u2019m shallow or not open to finding \u2018true\u2019 companionship but isn\u2019t having fun in the moment the best place to start from? No one\u2019s on the app to make friends. Even the prelude to any friendship or hook up, for that matter, still is some solid good fun.<\/p>\n

A lot of men told me how the app has been a fail as far as even chatting with women, let alone bringing any mojo to their sex lives. Some women told me how \u2018twas an exercise in vanity for them to reject men like they could never before and just to see how many matches they\u2019d get in a day, not to mention some harmless dominatrix styled flirting. For most of us, Tinder is a filler in between our busy scheds. I had imagined this filler to be an experimental meet up or an adventure filled proposal. Not a bloody Whatsapp notification.<\/p>\n

This article was written by Makepeace Sitlhou and was originally published<\/a> on Medium.<\/em><\/p>\n

Image: Chris Goldberg (CC BY-NC 2.0)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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