Hook-ups are easy today, love is not

A friend and I were chatting the other day about our relationship statuses. She went to the same B-school as I, and now works in Bangalore.

She is smart, independent, and doing very well in her career. We are both 30-plus, and when we meet, we end up discussing where we are headed relationship-wise.

"No man," she told me. "There is no one. I don’t even think about it honestly. I am so busy with my work and am so happy being single…"

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I smiled. All of us are generally happy, of course, but the thing about companionship is that its absence can sting an otherwise perfectly pleasant existence. I would say the shift kicks in at 30. It’s funny but it’s like someone turns on a switch when you cross that age and you don’t know how to turn it off.

My friend read my mind and added: "You know, it’s the hookup culture brought about by the likes of Tinder. I don’t know how to have a relationship anymore, when it’s so easy to login and get sex. It’s not for me. I would not know whom to trust."

She went on to tell me about her roomie who maintains an active presence on Tinder and often meets men for dates.

"But she is not happy," my friend said. "She is out every weekend, but has nothing to report by Monday morning. It’s like we have got the technology of San Francisco without importing their culture. Women who end up sleeping with men can’t look upon it instrumentally. They just can’t, in spite of what they claim. They expect more, while for the men, the moment a woman agrees to go to bed with them, especially through Tinder, they begin to think she is loose. They too may claim that’s not the case, but it is."

I was surprised by what my friend said, not because any of it was new to me, but because it sounded so much like how gay men learn the ropes of socialisation. To gay men, the body is the intermediary through which the first connection is established, the first, halting love known. That dynamic is now seeping among the straights.

Indeed, this state of affairs can be poisonous for someone looking to settle down. A utilitarian attitude to sex can be hard to shake off, and even after we pass that stage, earning the other person’s trust can be difficult. It is particularly difficult for the gays. In a culture that calls into question their love, not to mention their very existence, finding the dignity to seek happiness is an act of courage.

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A relationship, I have come to believe, is not two perfect people meeting serendipitously. It is a slow, hard climb that takes oodles of patience and compassion. A culture that lays too much stress on prompt connections, premised on left- and right-swiping people based on how they appear in a picture, can play havoc with this.

It is cool to diss old norms, but I increasingly feel that there is something to say for the beauty of an arranged marriage. When parents and the larger family involve themselves in alliances, it can get oppressive, yes, but it can also act as a bulwark against a nihilist culture that focuses too much on instant gratification at the cost of building anything long-term.

For, what else is the purpose of a Shaadi.com than to enable people with the express intent to commit to meet one another? A recently formed community called Amour is trying to do the same for the LGBT community. That people feel the need for such spaces attests to the failure of the now-ubiquitous meet-and-breed channels.

Meeting my friend brought home to me how similar we are. She is chary of dipping into a world with which I am deeply intimate. I have spent close to half my life on hookup sites/apps, and I fully comprehend their appeal. They can be a beacon of hope, a place of excitement. Yet, they can also come up short in delivering on that ultimate promise: of building a life with someone. My friend thinks that she does not possess the tools to work these new-age apps, and maybe neither do I. Both of us are trying to reach for something that is perhaps ungraspable in the realm of bits and bytes.