New Delhi: The art of matchmaking is a tradition as old as time. For many singles, friends, family and co-workers are relied upon to assist in the process of finding a life partner. Others take more extreme approaches, shelling out a hefty amount on high-end matchmakers in the hopes of finding that one true love.
But with a flood of apps and websites, true love can even be found beyond the traditional realm of matchmaking. Online dating has made it easier for people to kick-start the process of courtship.
Instead of requiring you to fill out laborious questionnaires, describing your body type as well as what you are seeking in a potential date, a handful of apps foster connections in more offbeat ways.
“First, there was the girl, dressed in a traditional salwar kameez, poised with a tray full of teacups, entering the room to meet her prospective life partner. Next, there was Shaadi.com, and a slew of matrimonial websites where Indian men and women logged in and hoped to find a lifetime of bliss. Now, the smartphone-toting generation is increasingly turning to dating apps, which help them find dates at the tips of their fingers,” says 43-year-old app developer Abhimanyu Das.
Online dating is a personal introductory system where individuals can find and contact each other over the internet to arrange a date, usually with the objective of developing a relationship.
A matchmaking app fills the gap between casual dating apps and old-fashioned matrimonial portals. These apps match users based on common interests, profession, lifestyle and interests among other things.
“Dating apps can be very frivolous and superficial. There is a huge underserved section of users, who are looking at taking the next big step in their lives and would like to meet someone special for that. But the road to meeting that special someone is quite tricky,” adds Das.
‘Date for benefits’
Most men who use dating apps want to ‘date for benefits’. It is a complaint that you often hear from women who try out new dating sites and apps. Tinder, for instance, is considered one of the best dating websites for single people around the world. However, new research has suggested that 30 per cent of Tinder users are married and another 12 per cent are already in a relationship.
Thrill, the brainchild of Devin Serago and Josh Israel, entrepreneurs from New Jersey, is working to change the rules of the game by giving women the first-mover advantage. Women make all the decisions on Thrill, while men may apply via Facebook or LinkedIn, clear Thrill’s checks, and wait for women’s approval before they can have a presence on the application.
“Women are stalked and harassed by men on dating applications and our endeavour was to empower these women. We comb through men’s Facebook profiles and ensure that they are not fakes, married or in relationships, and do not use pictures of celebrities as display photos, before allowing a man to come onboard,” says Israel.
Footloosenomore — with the tagline ‘we speak, not swipe’ — does not allow you to post your profile until you have been interviewed on the phone and attended a meeting.
“We need to see you in person and if we approve, we allow you to access our database for a small fee,” its Mumbai-based co-founder Varsha Agnihotri says.
Woo founder Sumesh Menon says the acceptance of such apps shows confidence in the way young people want to conduct relationships today. Most apps tell you if you and your match have a common friend. Having mutual friends is an added trust-builder.
Himangi Tripathi from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, shares her success story. “It is amazing, how we find love or rather love finds us. Yes, this is what actually happened to us. It was just another daily recommendations email on a dating app, in which I noticed Delhi-based Hemender’s profile. I expressed interest ... in July last year, which was accepted the next day by Hemender.
Quick connect
“After an initial text chat on the app, we exchanged numbers. He called me on August 5. Our first talk was magical, we did not realise we spoke for four long hours. That was it ... He came to meet me at my place in Bareilly in [the] last week of August.
“The meeting cleared any remaining questions we had about each other. We got engaged on September 25 and soon the date was finalised for us to get hitched. We got married on November 18,” Tripathi says.
However, despite the ease of use and a flood of options, many still endorse traditional matchmaking practices. “These apps are attractive, but in practice, it gets exhausting. There is a fair amount of conversations coming in, but I have not met a single person through any of such apps. I have not encountered like-minded girls here [online].
“Besides, showing only 10 or 20 persons every day is irritating,” says Mumbai-based 29-year-old banker Ajay Sharma. I work very long hours and I am too tired to invest much energy into this thing ... So there is not much difference between online and offline search. You see plenty of interest from people at first, but then it dies out,” says Delhi-based journalist Sapna Bhat, who is in her late twenties.
Finding a life partner is a decision that takes a lot of deliberation. In some communities, the traditional matchmaking role has been taken up by housewives as a hobby.
“I know many households where the housewife has been responsible for getting the younger daughter/son of her husband’s family married.
“Usually these housewives have their own circle of friends and acquaintances, and are quite good with their due diligence process. But the demand for informal and traditional way of matchmaking has definitely gone down in the last five years or so,” says Nandini Chakraborty, founder, Marrygold Boutique Matchmakers, an offline matrimonial service.
