It’s a story as old as time. Girl matches with the boy, they exchange a few messages, meet IRL (in real life) and see if they hit it off.
A happy ending in this case usually results in the dating app disappearing from the app line-up on both partners’ phones. Or else, it’s back to page one of the story with swiping through profiles again. The pandemic, however, threw in an unexpected plot twist to this predictable story.
Suddenly, dates couldn’t be as spontaneous and people were spending longer chatting online before they met offline. This gave rise to a new turn of events in the scene—slow dating. Or as Sitara Menon, senior marketing manager at OkCupid, puts it, “It’s the idea of wanting to take your time getting to know someone or getting physically or emotionally intimate with them.”
In the days of BC (before corona), meetings or dates often became the natural progression at the end of just one conversation on a dating app. But now, the same takes place after a matter of months.
“People are taking a step back and re-evaluating what they want from a relationship. There’s more clarity of intent and lower patience for conversations going nowhere,” adds Menon.
For Megha Vohra, a 35-year-old single mother who has been an active user of dating apps since 2016, the lockdown and remote-working lifestyle gave her ample amount of time to get to know her Bumble match. She connected with Tushar Walia, a 34-year-old entrepreneur, in April last year. The first meeting, however, only took place in June despite living only 15 km away from each other. “There was no pressure on either of us to wake up early and rush about with our routine. So once my kids went to bed, Tushar and I would chat on the phone until wee hours of the morning,” says Vohra, who is a human design coach, and numerologist and tarot card reader as well.
Over time, the conversations changed from casual to meaningful as well. “I had lost my husband at the age of 29 and Tushar was also engaged to someone else in the past. In those two months, we really opened up about our past and grew closer emotionally. So when we were finally able to meet, the connection was much deeper than the other dates I had met through apps,” adds Vohra, whose relationship with Walia is now going strong almost a year later too.
Vohra and Walia aren’t the only ones who spent a long time talking to each other before meeting. According to Ravi Mittal, founder and CEO of QuackQuack, users earlier exchanged fewer messages, less than 10, often just to exchange numbers before taking the conversation to a text messaging platform.
“But the average chat has increased to approximately 40-50 messages in a conversation, showing that users are going slow and interacting more,” explains Mittal.
Dates too have gotten informal and low-key in these times. What once used to be a meet-up over coffee or beer is now a virtual movie date in pajamas. “We’ve noticed that for some users, even the first phone conversation is now considered a date. Things eventually progress to sharing an activity—like watching a movie or cooking—over a video call, wherein people ditch the dressing up and go for something casual instead. The focus is more on an authentic connection,” explains Menon, adding that this trend of video call dates might just progress beyond the pandemic, adding a layer of finding familiarity with someone before meeting them for the first time.
“Daters in the age group of 26-32 years really seem to be looking for love and connection right now. And they’re more open to long-distance relationships too for that,” she says. Agrees Mittal, who adds that dating on dating apps in India was considered casual pre-2020. “But post multiple lockdowns and people spreading out to their hometowns, people are looking to beat their anxiety and looking for long conversations and better connections. We believe slow dating is here to stay at least till the pandemic gets over, more so, in the 25-plus age group who are more serious about finding a long-term match,” he says.
“It’s the idea of wanting to take your time getting to know someone or getting emotionally intimate with them.”
Sitara Menon, Sr Marketing Manager, OKCupid
“The average chat has increased to approximately 40-50 messages in a conversation, showing that users are going slow.”
Ravi Mittal, Founder and CEO, QuackQuack
“The future of dating is fluid. Gen Z chooses to broaden the scope of dating and find meaningful connections.”
Papri DeV, Sr Director, APAC Communications, Tinder
The trend of video call dates might just progress beyond the pandemic, adding a layer of finding familiarity with someone before meeting them for the first time