The new rules of dating - Cover Story News

After being single through the pandemic, Shamita Kulkarni, a French translator in Delhi, decided to give dating a go again about six months ago. Double vaxxed, date night outfits all set and with masks to match, she felt ready to dive back into the dating pool. What she had not anticipated, though, was FODA—the ‘fear of dating again’. Unsure about her online dating skills, it took her another month to set up her Tinder profile and enter the dating circuit.

It’s a feeling familiar to many in the post-pandemic world. With their love lives Covidated—cancelled or altered by the pandemic—many ended up as Covidivorcees. According to a survey popular dating app Bumble conducted among 2,000 users in India in June, 28 per cent of the respondents said they had broken up during the pandemic. The prolonged hiatus from dating and socialising left many doubting their ability to emotionally connect again. “Before the pandemic, I was a very social person,” says 25-year-old media professional Mrini Devnani. “Now, I don’t feel like engaging in emotional relationships with people.”

“Virtual dating gained popularity among all age groups during the lockdown. Watching Netflix on the phone, party apps and video dates became the trendy way to date”

– Elavarasan Raja, Dating and personality coach

Daters today are equal parts excited and nervous about getting back out there, as was evident in media platform Mashable’s Covid-19 dating survey this year. Another global study by online dating service Match.com confirmed the trend—38 per cent of the singles it surveyed were “nervous about their social skills when it came to dating again in real life”. “It is the same feeling one gets when they stop working or studying for a few months,” says Dr Upasana Chaddha, a Delhi-based psychologist and founder of Mindscape Centre for Counselling. “Circumstances change and you are unsure if you will match the new expectations of workplaces or universities. It’s the same with socialising.”

The Virtual Connection

Illustration by Nilanjan Das

Like much else, dating too went virtual in the time of Covid. WFH, social distancing and lockdowns of restaurants, bars and theatres meant the end of any opportunity to meet new people, making video dating the next best thing. In March 2020, Tinder, which has its largest user base in India at 31 million users, recorded 3 billion swipes in 24 hours, its highest number in a day. From March to May 2020, OkCupid saw a 700 per cent increase in dates globally. And on Bumble, video calls increased by 70 per cent in 2020. As per these dating apps, the numbers continue to remain high in 2021. An overwhelming 72 per cent of singles Bumble spoke to in India now feel it is possible to fall in love with someone online without having to meet them in person. Online dating, adds Sitara Menon, senior marketing manager, OkCupid India, allows for more serendipitous moments than the limitations IRL (in real life). It was what Kulkarni’s friends recommended too. But how do you ‘meet’ a person online, she wondered? “Offline you have so many distractions—you can order food, absorb the ambience, comment on the people around you. What do you do online? Stare at each other across the screen?” she asks.

“There have been more conversations around critical issues, such as how household chores should be split and if women should work after marriage”

– Sitara Menon, Senior Marketing Manager, OkCupid India

Kulkarni was not alone in her dilemma. A whole tribe of people out there felt the same way. It forced platforms like Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, Match, OkCupid and the Dating Group (which owns several brands, such as Dating.com, DateMyAge, Promise and ChinaLove) to up their game. Hinge now offers a ‘virtual date night kit’, offered in collaboration with the e-commerce site Uncommon Goods. The kit includes recipes for three different date night cocktails and a long list of icebreakers—questions on common interests, their respective personalities, dating lives—to get the conversation flowing. For Kulkarni, it was a life-saver. “I have had dates where we have made drinks over video, played games and even screen shared to watch a movie together,” she says.

Bumble included 150 new ‘interest badges’ for user profiles, and a ‘Night In feature’, where two people can participate in an interactive game, like trivia, during a video chat. Snap’s AR (augmented reality) lenses within video calls and video notes add to the fun. “Virtual dating became very popular among all age groups during the lockdown,” says Elavarasan Raja, Chennai-based dating and personality coach. “Watching Netflix together on the phone, party apps and even video dinner dates are trendy dating methods now.” According to Snehil Khanor, co-founder and CEO of dating app Truly Madly, “We have leapfrogged at least three years into the future. Those who had inhibitions about virtual dating shed them and realised it is one of the safest ways to meet new people.”

Love after Covid

But as things slowly return to normal, what will the future of dating be? Fluid, predicts Tinder’s ‘Future of Dating Survey’. A Bumble study found that video dating is here to stay, as 39 per cent of its users in India confessed to trying a video date as a first date option in 2021. Virtual dating allows daters to get over FODA. Kritika (name changed on request), a graphic designer in Mumbai, had not been on a single date since March 2020, when the pandemic struck. With her parents in Lucknow, extreme loneliness led the 28-year-old to enrol on dating and matchmaking sites “if only to see new faces and have conversations”. In June, she met in-person a young businessman she had connected with virtually. The relationship didn’t last, but she is not complaining. “Just the feeling of going out on dates was a big boost to my self-confidence. I realised I could still connect with people,” she says.

“Single people in India are now more intentional about their dating decisions and are prioritising safety and compatibility as vaccinations increase in India”

– Samarpita Samaddar, Communications Director, Bumble India

In a world left scarred by Covid, online dating is also a safer option. “I am vaccinated” is the hottest pick-up line these days. Thirty-five per cent of the Indians surveyed by Bumble said they have become more safety-conscious after the second wave. Vaccination status was essential to 38 per cent of the Bumble users—they would not go on a date or have sex with someone who isn’t vaccinated. Many dating sites have added a ‘badge feature’ for users to update their vaccination status or indicate their comfort levels with offline activities. Not being vaccinated is now a major turn-off. Vivek Khanna, a 26-year-old MBA student from Pune, says he is open to dating people from other religions, countries or divorcees but not someone who hasn’t taken his jabs. “I feel it is indicative of the person’s mindset—a disregard for public health, science and medicine. As a person devoted to factual knowledge, I don’t think I could be with a vaccine sceptic,” says Khanna, adding that he has come across profiles online who are equally concerned about dating unvaccinated people. “Luckily, all my matches so far have been with those who are vaccinated.”

Women certainly are loving the safety and comfort of meeting and chatting online, as a precursor to in-person meeting. Women in south India prefer Woo over Tinder, show Statista reports. Woo places women first, details are always confidential and women can make private calls directly from the app. Bhavna Shastri, 32, a corporate lawyer living in Bengaluru, is an active Woo user. It helps her steer clear of ‘creeps’. “On Tinder, there is no control over who can view your profile. If the app thinks there is a potential match, they will send your profile to a person. Often, you end up connecting with totally strange people, many of whom are fake. I find Woo more genuine and private,” she says.

“Online dating is less effort, less risky and safer,” says Khanor of TrulyMadly. Of the single users surveyed by Bumble globally, 45 per cent said they prefer virtual dates because it saves them time and money. Virtual dates also save you unnecessary grief, as 28-year-old Arun Wahi from Mumbai would tell you: “If someone rejects you online, you don’t feel like you have wasted hours commuting to meet them or a tonne of money to dress up and pay for dates.”

“We have leapfrogged at least three years into the future. Those who had inhibitions about virtual dating shed them and realised it is one of the safest ways to meet new people”

– Snehil Khanor, Co-founder and CEO, TrulyMadly

No wonder, OkCupid has found that 38 per cent women and 25 per cent men in India want to stick to virtual communication in the initial stages of dating even in post-pandemic times.

Virtually Impossible?

Finding someone on your own wave length has always been hard—with or without a pandemic. It becomes infinitely more so when you are trying to do it virtually. Enter slow dating, where couples take their time to get to know one another, before going DTR (‘defining the relationship’ phase, for the uninitiated). “Millennials are now discovering love through long, profound conversations and digitally-shared experiences,” says OkCupid’s Menon.

Singles want a match who will respect them for who they are and what they want from life. “Transparency” and “authenticity”, too, are the new buzzwords, according to Tinder. “There has been growing awareness and conversations around issues that are critical and topical such as how household chores should be split and if women should work after marriage,” says Menon.

Simultaneously, there has been a decline in toxic dating behaviour, such as pie hunting (deliberately seeking vulnerable people) or ghosting (the sudden breaking off all ties with a prospective partner). “Dating online,” says Khanna, “used to be a pastime for me, so I never cared if I was rude or if I suddenly cut out someone I met on an app. Now I feel more aware of it because no matter who the person is, they would be feeling the same anxiety as me because of Covid.”

Is it Happily Ever After?

Post the pandemic, emotional connection has become more important, even if the relationship does not end up being serious. “Through the pandemic,” says Menon, “millennials discovered an impatience with entertaining dead-end connections, opting instead to invest in ones with potential.” This has led to a rise in the trend of ‘hardballing’. Gen Z is no longer pussyfooting around what it wants. It’s all there upfront, in their bios. “I don’t fear being sensitive or vulnerable around dates anymore,” says Khanna. “I don’t want to present a fake alter ego. A long-term relationship or even emotional compatibility cannot be built under false pretenses, especially when you can’t meet the person offline.” According to Tinder, the number of user bios that mention the word “anxiety” have grown by 31 per cent, “boundaries” by 19 per cent and “consent” by 11 per cent. “Single people in India are now more intentional about their dating decisions than ever before and are prioritising safety and compatibility as vaccinations increase in India,” says Samarpita Samaddar, communications director, Bumble India.

The lockdown also had single millennials scrambling to find themselves a ‘quarantine bae’—the person they can ride out the pandemic with. Many found themselves ‘Apocalypsing’, or getting very serious with someone they had just started dating. As a result, one third of singles surveyed by Plenty of Fish across countries said they were “treating every relationship like it was their last one”.

On Tinder, though, more people are willing to see “where things go”. In a global survey, 62 per cent said they aren’t looking for a committed relationship but prefer friendship with romantic potential or casual dating instead. For instance, Ananya Pal (name changed on request), a 19-year-old student from Delhi, chatted and video dated her online flame for three months before deciding to meet him. “We would screen share and watch movies together every Friday night, use the Household party app to play virtual games,” she says. They would video call over Jitsi Meet, a popular alternative to Zoom, with better safety measures, when they wanted to get ‘intimate’. They even had cyber sex a couple of times. “I had a Cinderella Halloween mask. He didn’t mind his face being visible.” They finally met up while volunteering for a charity medicine distribution drive in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area. “We couldn’t wait to see one another. It was also a meaningful way to start our offline relationship.” It fizzled out once things started getting serious. Having lost a grandparent to Covid, Pal didn’t feel emotionally ready.

“Being stuck at home for long has made dating a lot different than it used to be,” says dating coach Raja. “Expectations have changed, as has the way people express themselves. There are teenagers who want to explore a lot, and then there are those in their early 20s who aren’t looking for anything serious, but someone who respects their personal space.”

Sujata Nair, a 37-year-old art curator in Hyderabad, resents the implication that if you have known a person for a year, marriage must obviously follow. “I didn’t even want to meet my partner for six months. I wanted to first just talk online,” says Nair, who met her partner on Bumble. And talk they did, about everything under the sun—their mutual interest in history and traditional art forms, their childhood, how the pandemic has changed their perspectives on what they want from life and how they both would prefer a quiet, simple wedding ceremony with just a priest present. “Now that we have met, we would rather date, then live together and, if that works out, we might marry. The pressure is less that way and you are likely to end up with a person with whom you can spend the rest of your life comfortably.”

Kulkarni’s efforts to work through her FODA have paid off. After six months of speaking online and video dating, she finally decided to meet her online partner. She was certain it would end right after their first meeting. “But it didn’t. I think because we were so direct and open with each other, there were no hidden surprises. We connected instantly and the foundation that we set up online has kept us going even as we have started taking things offline. We aren’t rushing. We aren’t talking about marriage or living in.” They are happy in the moment, happily ever after can wait.

—with Santhosh Raj Saravanan; Aditi Pai and Shelly Anand

Illustration by Raj Verma

The Covid dating dictionary

FODA (Fear of Dating Again): The anxiety around dating again after a long hiatus from relationships due to the pandemic

Double vaxxed: Fully vaccinated

Sex-distancing: Expressing unwillingness to engage in sexual intercourse due to the ongoing pandemic

Zumping: The act of breaking up, or dumping someone, over a Zoom call

Covidivorcee: A person who got divorced/ broke up during the Covid pandemic

Covidated: When plans are cancelled or altered by Covid

Hardballing: Being clear about your expectations from a relationship— whether you want a casual fling or a serious connection

Soft ghosting: Keeping up the bare-minimum communication, such as via emojis or social media likes, instead of completely cutting out a person

Orbiting: To let a former fling know you are still interested by following them and interacting with them on social media

Covid baggage: One’s experiences of the pandemic that are shared with someone to forge a meaningful connection

Apocalypsing: Treating every relationship like your last or getting serious very quickly with someone you have just met

Quarantine Bae: A partner for the duration of the pandemic

Illustration by Raj Verma

What singles want

New trends in surveys conducted by various dating platforms

Focus on video dates: According to dating app Bumble, 39 per cent of their users have tried a video date as a first date option in 2021. 48 per cent of single Indians surveyed by the app say they enjoy virtual dating because it feels safer than meeting up with someone in person; 45 per cent like virtual dates since it saves them time and money.

Taking things slow: On Tinder, more people are willing to see “where things go”. In a survey, 62 per cent said they aren’t looking for a committed relationship and prefer friendship with romantic potential or casual dating.

Emotions first: OkCupid found that 84 per cent of its users from around the world would like to first build an emotional connection before getting into a physical one.

Healthier dating habits: Almost half of Hinge users (45 per cent) said the pandemic spurred healthier dating habits, with a decline in trends like ghosting, which is down 27 per cent on the app.

Honesty first: On Match.com, 63 per cent users now spend more time getting to know potential partners; 69 per cent are more honest; 61 per cent of Gen Z focus less on physical attraction.

Covid preferences: From the 2,000 Indian singles Tinder surveyed, 71 per cent said they are open about their hygiene preferences prior to meeting a date; and 66 per cent said knowing their date’s maskwearing habits before they meet is important.

Illustration by Raj Verma

Top dating apps

Hinge

USP: Based on a Nobel prize-winning algorithm, the app promises to find singles great offline dates; and ensures the relationship proceeds beyond just virtual chats

Age group: It is popular among those looking for serious relationships. One estimate suggests 90 per cent of its users are between 23 and 32 years.