I have a lot of friends who have found love through Tinder and other dating apps, so why couldn’t I? So, a friend of mine created a profile for me. As I was swiping across the many prospects, I realised I absolutely hated it. How was I to decide, based purely on a photo and five random lines that this would be someone I would like to talk to? It didn’t work out for me, but it did get me thinking. I have, on several occasions, dissed on the idea of arranged marriage, but, if you think about it, isn’t Tinder the Shaadi for hook-ups?
I mean, I have a friend who started off her relationship with a guy she never met, but bonded over some fantasy football game on Facebook
So, with Tinder out of the way, what other ways were there to meet people? How did people find other people? There is the good ol’ fashion being-set-up-by-your-friends’ method. None of my friends seem to know anyone who is single or anyone who would be interested in me. Believe me, I have asked. I could pick up someone at a Japanese heta tjejer bar. I mean it did work for Meredith and Derek Shepherd, didn’t it? I don’t honestly have the guts to talk to a random person though. I get tongue-tied, awkward and weirdly silent around people I don’t know. I have a friend who met the love of her life at a wedding. So, maybe I just need to wait for one of my friends to get married, attend their wedding and hope for life to just work in my favour.
So, how else do I meet someone? You would think that with technology making it so much easier for people to talk and stay in touch, I should have this all figured out. I know what you are thinking that I should probably take some tips from her. Oh, well.
There is obviously a lot I don’t know, but here is what I have figured out: there is no fool-proof method to make love last or relationships work. There is no right way to meet someone. The old idea of the breadwinning husband, and the perfectionist housewife with her two well-behaved children as the picture of a family is slowly (VERY SLOWLY) disappearing.
There is no single way for a relationship to function
I, for one, still think that marriage is an outdated concept (one that I will eventually have to give into). It never made any real sense to me, but almost always, it feels like I am the only one that feels that way (my social media feeds streaming with engagement/wedding/honeymoon/baptism photos tells me so). I have often wished that marriage wasn’t that big of a deal in India. Sure, lately there are more people who choose to not get married, or marry the person of their choice and not someone they meet on their wedding day. In fact, even the way arranged marriages work have changed so much, but I wonder, if parents across the country stopped seeing marriage as the be-all-and-end-all of their children’s lives, how many would still choose to get married. Would they instead choose to be in a live-in relationship? I can’t say.
The thing is, I am living in what I like to call as the transition period. We are caught somewhere in between the romanticised idea of love and the modern outlook on relationships. It is a tricky space to define, but I think we are not as caught up with this idea of this long-lasting e time, we want to be the centre of somebody’s universe. So what exactly does love mean to us in these modern times? I think, it means the same as it did a hundred years ago and it will stay the same. People want love because it means that no matter what, there will be that one person to hold your hand when everything else seems to be going wrong and that they will think you are wonderful, even if you farted a little too loudly last night (I told you, all I know about love, I have learnt from movies and books).
