Swipe right or soulmate?

February is here again. A month that’s marked by the slow turn of winter into early spring. That shy border between winter and spring. The month of love. Isn’t it ironic that the month of love is the shortest month of the year?

And Indians are desperately seeking love, not just in this month but, apparently, throughout the year. 

An estimated 82.4 million Indians used dating apps in 2023, according to a global data and business intelligence platform. This is a staggering rise of 293% from 20 million in 2017. India’s online dating market is the fifth fastest-growing in the world. The country is expected to become the world’s second-largest dating services market by 2027. Gen Z Indians are swiping right, left, up, and down to find that perfect match. Traditional marriage portals are desperately reinventing themselves to meet the needs of a new generation that has grown up digitally, is often starved of emotional connections, and is now hungry to meet, match, and mate. Relentlessly. Passionately. Quickly. 

Where is the swiping leaving us? What is the click-meet-match-unmatching showing us? How are we playing our own versions of Modern Love?

Bangalore-based Garima Behal, a Senior Content Editor, is in her late 20s and finds today’s digital dating world complex and bewildering. “We can swipe people right and left in a display like commodities at a supermarket. It makes us feel in control (and superior) because of the seemingly endless choices, the dopamine hits, etc. But the resultant rejection (or validation) can take a toll on mental health — both ours and theirs.” 

Garima describes herself as asexual and a straight demisexual for whom the emotional connection comes first before sexual attraction. “I couldn’t care less about sex, but I love being touched, caressed, held, and given physical affection. My partner is allosexual — he experiences both sexual attraction and a desire for the actual act of sex. To be asexual and in a relationship means that my partner knows, understands, and accepts my identity completely despite the differences we have. It means I also do the same.”

Beyond binaries

Garima is one among many Indians these days who are open about exploring their sexual and gender identities beyond black-and-white binaries. Ashima Nair* found queer love after a heterosexual marriage. She lives with her partner, who also left her marriage to be together. It may sound like the perfect love story or ending, but Ashima says beyond the queer identities, their relationships are traversing the same paths as cis-het ones. “We had no idea what it meant to come together, and then, the kind of price we’d had to pay,” she says. “So we came together just like that, that we’ll make it together against all the odds.” But Ashima realised that the odds were no different from any other relationship. Today, she says, after four years of being in this relationship, it’s important for couples to always ask these questions: Are our values aligned? And what does it mean to navigate these differences in values?

Psychologist Siddhida Kabara-Batavia agrees that these are fundamental questions. For her, the digital age has brought both benefits and challenges for relationships. Whether we like it or not, we live in this world. But what about when we think the next perfect partner is a swipe away? Siddhida advocates patience. “I think we are too quick to judge and move ahead. What we seek might be sitting in front of us, but the pressure to find something ‘perfect’ is so immense that we sometimes choose to chase ‘something more out there’ instead of ‘something more that can be created at this moment.’”

Check repeated patterns

It’s okay, she says, to want something more for ourselves. But it’s important to see if we have a repeated pattern of losing out on what we have to chase something that may or may not exist. Yet, the temptation to find someone out there is always around. While Garima didn’t meet her current partner on a dating platform, she says she would have been willing to explore more dating apps if she hadn’t. Rhea Pal found just that person on a dating site. Having got married at the age of 28, Rhea’s husband left her soon after for another woman.

“To save myself from life, I jumped into another relationship. Two years and the roses gave way to slaps, kicks, and threats of being thrown down the balcony,” she explains. Eventually, the first random swipe on a dating app led her to her current partner. But the previous abusive relationship had left its lingering scars. “I was always unsure, suspicious, doubting his every word and move. After three years together, I still find myself being pulled into the same darkness. However, the frequency is less. He gave me space to go back to drawing, learn music, and to sit in peace without fear with my dogs.”

New day, new challenges

And having children brings its own set of challenges. Indians are having fewer babies than before. If the total fertility rate in 1971 was 5.2, the latest surveys show that it is now 2.1. But not everyone can ‘figure out’ how to navigate the changes to a relationship once a baby arrives. For Rhea, physical intimacy took a backseat. “I don’t think we even held hands for 8 to 9 months. I was so repulsed by my body and the thought of anyone coming near it that I kept away from human proximity for quite a while,” she explains. It takes time to get back to feeling like husband and wife. 

And while India traditionally had lower divorce rates than America, that pattern is also changing, with a reported 350% increase in divorce rates over the last two decades. About 1 in 100 Indian marriages end in divorce, according to the latest figures, compared to 50% of American marriages ending in divorce.

Sandeep Murthy* recently got a divorce after a long-standing marriage. Although divorce remains a taboo word and is heavily stigmatised, for Sandeep, the whole process was quite accepting and accommodating. But has his marriage and its end influenced his future? “I think, in a way, the saying goes, you make a great husband after your first relationship or marriage. It has helped me be a better person and bring my better self to the table than I did earlier. In a way, it’s been like a finishing or a grooming class or a session, if I could say that,” he admits.

Sandeep, too, turned to dating apps after his marriage, and his experience has been largely positive. And there are many of them in India these days: The popular ones like Bumble, Tinder, and Hinge as well as those focused on LGBTQ+, such as AYA and Delta, and even a matrimonial app in Umeed. The old concept of matchmaking has never gone away, either, but is also evolving. The old ‘Uncle-Aunty’ network was limited by the number of connections within that network. A newspaper’s reach was limited to its readership. Apps have widened that pool, democratising reach and accessibility for hungry souls seeking permanent love. Life and relationship coaches have emerged, taking on more of the mantle of guiding stray hearts. 

Looking for commitment

Radhika Mohta is one such Bengaluru-based matchmaker and relationship coach. She runs a ‘dating accelerator’ called Elevate. “It’s a combination of clarity exercises to enable marriage-minded singles with a better understanding of who they are, what they are manifesting in their life, in their relationship, everything from their attachment style to their personality to their love language to just like having more clarity on who they are and what is it that they are seeking,” she explains.

Her clients are typically 24 and above and live in major Indian cities or abroad. They are looking for a long-term commitment. For marriage. “They may have already been through a break-up or two. They may have already experienced dating fatigue because of how much they have already swiped on people. And now they are like, okay, I also need a solid companion to return to. I am done with getting attracted to somebody who’s emotionally unavailable, chasing somebody who’s not the right person for me, or going through short-term situationships.”

A palpable disconnect

She notes that as the old concept of joint families has shifted and coalesced into today’s nuclear ones, there has been a disconnect between what today’s generation is looking for versus what their parents or older generations used to look for in relationships. And, of course, technology has allowed us to have more and more options, she admits.

For Dublin-based Siddharth Kapoor*, being constantly online and connected brings another set of challenges. Knowing and negotiating what parts of life are shareable, with whom, and when are challenges that the always-connected world presents, he says. But how does one really know what to share? Do self-help books help? Many people seem to have the same questions because about 10 million self-help books are sold each year, with about three-fourths of the readers of books on marriage and relationships being women.

For Siddharth, the tools aren’t important. “What will ultimately matter for a couple is not the specific mantra/philosophy/tools that they use, but rather a shared understanding of what areas of life they fit well together, what areas cause friction, what can be done to work around these, and of course, a shared willingness to put in the work required to overcome the friction.”

Twin flames anyone?

And this common understanding needs continuous work, he says, and is never a single act. While Siddharth talks of traditional marriages, others are exploring relationships beyond monogamy and heteronormativity. Polyamorous relationships are still taboo, but the idea of polyamory has been around for a long while. Open marriages are no longer a secret but still stigmatised. As Garima points out, new-age concepts of soulmates and twin flames are no longer restricted to romantic partners. “It takes a lot of emotional intelligence to recognise that one person alone can’t fulfil all of our emotional needs, all of our needs for connection, understanding, vulnerability, affection, and intimacy,” she says, pointing out she has a twin flame who is her SOS contact. And that’s the rub. 

As much as relationships shift and coalesce, they remain the same. At heart, we seek love. We fail sometimes. We try again. We abandon love on the altar of compromise. We confine and limit our search in some areas but break free of boundaries in others. We seek, grasp, and thirst. In love, we remain. Hungry for it, vacuous in its void, and driven by its promise. 

*Some names have been changed on request.