It all started when my best friend described to me all the dates she had been meeting and going through Tinder. I was dating my first boyfriend then and honestly was terrified by how lovely and wholesome it was at the age of 19. The workings of the algorithm fascinated me, and I wanted to get all the validation I could from all the oysters of the sea I was yet to explore.
This fascination of connecting with someone online was not new, though. Connecting with strangers around the world has existed in my life since my teenage years. When my friends held hands with their partners and received roses from their crushes in high school, all I, as an obese 15-year-old, had was the 40-year-old man in the US. Who knew then that I shall be writing about this world of online pleasure sharing from the “Second City” in the US. I met so many strangers and sexted with so many of them, some my age, some with extreme daddy issues, and some way too old for a 15-year-old. I was “Natasha” an 18-year-old woman from India who wanted her breasts to be fondled by a strange man in Egypt. Unlike the Gen Z version of dating, it was a beautiful app, as you didn’t know who was on the other end. It all started with an “ASL?” and with “Oh My Baby!!!!!!!, F**K”
The pink color fire and the whole empowering stance of the yellow bubbles, and then the one that wants to be deleted, but we all know once people start finding love, orgasm, and satisfaction, capitalism shall face its doom. The FOMO of dating apps struck me so hard that I left my very loving boyfriend to be validated by several others in the world.
It became very clear to me right on my first date that the purpose of the apps was to make all the women the avoidantly attached, women who will then be perfect chasing material for all the men out there. Especially with India’s gender ratio and the taboo associated with sex and sexuality, I was already too much in demand, and who doesn’t like being chased.
I wanted the sapiosexual tag attached to me to attract all the JNUites and Ambedkars in Delhi. Hence Oxford Bookstore, streets of Khan Market, and Kurtas with a book in my hand became the profile tags. Having sex with intellectuals in midst of sexuality and history, the Gardens of Lodhi is something I will never regret. The make-out in the car while it rained, the late-night kiss in front of Plaza, the anxiety of being caught and bribing Yogi’s police soon turned into being grabbed from the back on the stairs of my university, and half an hour slots of quickies. That’s all the time and space I had to entertain people from the pinks and yellows of that time. They also turned into days and hours of sexual exploration with one another of kinks and fantasies you’d never dare to discuss with your actual partners? The pandemic was even more helpful with the rise of time, energy, and the rise of supply of time, energy, and horniness.
To meet the 40-year-old from ASL ( I am kidding, of course) 🙄 I traveled to Chicago. This was super exciting. Bumble and Tinder had a LARGE pool that I had never explored. My expectations were simple, I shall be treated exotic and shall be fucked with an extreme sense of orientalism. None of those things happened. Turns out algorithms were racist, and for a still fat woman with brown skin, finding men in the middle of a pandemic was like finding a word right now to complete this metaphoric statement ugh.
I am a researcher, however, and I have too many research skills. I am also a behavioral scientist, and I know the power of nudges. It was a power game of cleavage, thighs, and pouted mouths, and the numbers, super swipes, and compliments, all started to come in. People were inaccessible in the corners of Hyde Park, and Americans have the skill of not replying. The invalidation of America made me question what was about me, that I was so undesirable here.
The one population which was still my fan was the South Asian male. I knew how to play the game with them. And it was easy. And thus, starting spring of 2021, smokes of weed, spits on my ass, and date plans turned into nudes sharing became the norm. To fill in the loneliness amidst neoliberal individualism, the pinks, yellows, and purples all became a game of swipes, likes, and roses followed by emotions of guilt, annoyance, and despair. It was the same at the other end; my unmatched pairs were far fewer than those who deleted themselves only to be seen in the deck a few weeks later. In the summer of 2022, when I had officially fucked up all the group dynamics by fucking half of the South Asians in my vicinity, I decided I shall no longer use dating apps to share nudes and tear off clothes but to actually find love.
I changed my status from “causal” to “relationship,” and “master educated” became the primary filter. JNU, DU, and Ashoka intellectuals could no longer suffice me as I needed graduates from Harvard, Kellogg, and Booth, followed by McKinsey, Deloitte, and BCG consultants. In pursuit of finding love and a long-term partner, I adopted great ways of communicating to date on these dating apps, consistent communication, a clear set of expectations, and received acts of love in receipt through hands-on my vagina to check if I was a transgender, hung up on a New Years Date Plan and ghosted after two months of dating and talking.
In the world of GENZs, online and remote work and education, and almost everything digitized, dating apps are of course, the answer to finding love and sex. The algorithms make it fun and entertaining to swipe right and left, but definitely not the Cupid I am looking for here 🙂
bhargavikavisar 