Soumi Dutta, a third-year PhD student, often visits expensive south Delhi cafés or Khan Market restaurants after getting a match on dating apps. “It has become a norm to be invited to or to invite someone you want to explore a relationship with to an expensive café. Golconda Bowl in Hauz Khas is a favourite hangout. If not a restaurant, I am invited to fine-wine dinners at their flats, where they greet me with a bottle of expensive wine, and then we spend the night binge-watching web series on streaming platforms,” says Dutta.
Dutta’s experience is not a standalone one. As the use of dating apps increases, people with less resources or no money are refraining from using apps because that, they feel, leads to an additional financial burden.
Expensive meet-ups
“I will avoid using dating apps until I get a good job with a good salary, because going on a date mostly means going to expensive cafés and restaurants. Dates, for both men and women, nowadays also means proper grooming or a makeover, which includes wearing luxurious/branded clothes, shoes, and others—these are necessary as one also uploads photos on the app. The photos have to suggest that you are a person with means,” adds Dutta. If such is the case, why not go to a roadside dhaba, food outlet, or tea shop? Are safety or congestion, or lack of privacy the reasons?
Souraja Ghosh believes it is a combination of factors. A professor and a single mother, Ghosh, in her 40s, has been a regular on dating apps like Bumble and Hinge for the past eight years. Her dating experience has been mixed. “In my experience, showing off is culturally enabled, accepted, and reinforced among people from certain age groups in Delhi. Many often put up their pictures with fancy cars on dating apps just to impress. Many write that they are party animals, and are open to vibing with different people. Most of them belong to the age group of 20-35 with no financial responsibilities. Hence, they can justify what they are doing. However, as a single mother, I’ve to take care of my expenses. I can’t think of spending R4,000 on a single date,” says Ghosh. Baani Goyal, a public relations executive and poet, echoes her sentiment. “Today’s generation is into exhibitionism—from what they are wearing to what they are eating, they love to showcase everything on public platforms. Dating is also a part of this process. They want their first date to be impressive and hence they look for expensive places,” she says.
The privacy factor
Many also go to expensive cafés and restaurants due to the lack of public places to meet and talk. Pranav Kishore Saxena, a policy consultant, believes a financial investment for a casual date can seem a load in the early days of trying out a relationship, as Delhi does not have hangout places in all localities—even to have a conversation. “For Mumbaikars, they can simply sit by the sea at Marine Drive to have a conversation. That is impossible in Delhi. Roads are congested, traffic is a major issue, you just have to enter a café and a good one at that. Having a conversation in a small tea shop, right next to the road with traffic passing by, is difficult,” he says. Ghosh adds: “Delhi is not very safe for women, so meetings in public places are often difficult.”
Where’s the inclusivity?
Meghna Mehra, a freelance political consultant, had a weird dating experience two days ago. Being a woman from East Delhi, she felt judged by the other person because of her address. “I had a match with a person from south Delhi, and as soon as he got to know that I live in Karkardooma, he started telling me a story about how people from that neighbourhood “fraud others”. He even narrated an experience of a person who was defrauded in a hotel lounge in Karkardooma. It reeked of class bias. East Delhi is often considered an economically weaker area. That mentality was reflected in the conversation,” says Mehra.
Incidents like this raise the question whether dating is inclusive in urban pockets of the country, and even in India’s capital where people of various economic backgrounds live. “Dating in Delhi is far from being inclusive. It demands a certain knowledge of tech, which is exclusive. Dating apps, hence, allow only a specific segment of society to interact and intermingle, while the majority of the people don't have access to opportunities to meet people. Should they then not have a romantic or erotic life?” asks Saxena.
Club dates come with a dress code, points out Mehra. “You need to wear branded clothes, which many do not have. So, my friends often come to me asking for proper clothes before going on a date. Also, it is expected that for dates, I need to go to some expensive hangout in South Delhi, as nobody is willing to come to the place where I live. I am a contract worker, so sometimes I find it difficult to go for such dates. So, I either ask them to come to a dhaba close to my place. If they are unwilling, that’s where it ends before anything can begin,” she says.