Dating in 2023: Are you loved out or swiped clean?
With online dating, heartbreak is part of the journey. Can you really be extravagant or thrifty in matters of the heart?
For the last many years, no woman I know has actually come to me and said, “Oh, what a wonderful first date I had last evening”.
This seems odd. We live in a world that boasts of at least 10 well-known dating apps and websites. It should be easier than ever to find someone. And yet, so many of us are still terribly single.
Welcome to Millenial Dating 2.023. Along with dating platforms, it seems even the language of dating has now changed. Try keeping track of the terminology: Breadcrumbing, ghosting, orbiting, eclipsing. That’s half my Class VI Geography portion in there.
Being single can be exhausting. Especially if you’re someone who swoons over dating bios that read: “I am an old-school lover, born in the wrong generation”. Especially if you’re up most nights, scrolling through endless Reels listing “30 places to visit with your partner before you turn 30”. Especially if your paired-up friends are off on adventures already and posting their own Reels. Especially if they’ve set it to exactly the song you would have chosen!
And even before there’s a relationship, there’s a series of heartbreaks – the ones you’ll inevitably experience in the pursuit of love. Be it the realisation of not finding someone to your liking after the first date, or the fear of being turned down by someone you do like, the despair is recurring. Even hope – that essential commodity to find love – starts to run out. It’s like a never-ending loop.
More often than not, one simply forgets to open and check a dating app. And when one does remember, there’s a pile of 30 profiles waiting. How does one decide based on three pictures and a quote, anyway? Dating apps, or matrimony, the stories are not so different.
Then, suddenly, you come across someone who’s put “sapiosexual” in their bio, and you take the plunge. You say hello. Life gets in the way. You disappear for six days. Eventually, it’s Sunday night. You’re in bed, your body less tired, and your soul more lonely. You decide to open the app again. This time, the response is either, “Come over. I live alone,” or “I am strictly looking for something casual.” And off goes yet another flame.
It’s not all gloomy. There still are some (okay, far and few) slow-paced and patient dates. The ones who do not mind good-humoured, respectful conversations without jumping on to the next level. You enjoy the conversions, you’re mentally engaged, you find that you do not actually mind catching up after a month of no-agenda texting.
The meeting, too, goes well. “You look smart”, “I like how you think”, or “You are a fun person” is what you are told. You’re flattered, of course. But there’s still no spark. So what next? How exactly does one move forward with an almost stranger?
It’s always better when it’s organic, isn’t it? You meet a person, become friends, then discover a spark one fine day and everything feels right. There’s attraction, there’s chemistry, there’s love, even! But (there’s always a but) it’s often not mutual. And we are back to square one.
And before you know it, you’ve been single for another year. You’ve notched another dozen new heartaches, if not heartbreaks. There are more apps, but they still feature the same pictures, same quotes, same sapiosexuals. Its Sunday night again. Should you even bother reaching for the phone?
Vinaya Patil is a journalist and a Pune-based professor of media studies.
From HT Brunch, January 28, 2023
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