The drama and damages from Indian cultural attitudes to dating: an introduction

When I was in high school back in the mid-2000s, I posted a lyric from Anastasia on msn:

“Life is a road and I want to keep going

Love is a river and I want to keep flowing”

Next thing I knew my mother, who had seen it, was asking me what this referred to and who this river of love was flowing toward. A few hours later, I was updating my status, with what was left after the inquisition: “Life is a road and I want to keep going”

Welcome friends to the world of dating as an Indian person! This blog-post is a trip down memory lane for me. I’m in my 30s, freer and wiser now, no longer afflicted by many of the issues I describe here. But I want to look out for the younger Indian women out there.

Indian parents are notoriously strict about dating – this is well known. But perhaps what is not fully known is the extent of damage this causes to the adolescents and young adults who are raised with this strictness and stigma around dating. The effects are so long-lasting and show up in a myriad of different ways that delicate as this topic is, I just had to write about it.

Dating without a marriage timeline? Yeah, good luck with that!

Firstly, Indian parents do not understand that dating often has an exploratory phase and is not always marriage-oriented from day 1, and indeed may never be marriage-oriented if the persons involved are not looking for marriage.

For many of us who were/are living our 20s in the western world, this is a decade to explore who we are, have fun whilst we are in relatively good health, explore the world whilst we have freedom from responsibilities like a mortgage, elderly parents or children to take care of, and build an identity that is independent of our parents. It is the decade when you truly fly out of the nest into the big bad but exciting world. In the Indian model though, you should never be flying out of the nest, you should be creating your nest within the existing nest, and straight away. i.e. Do not date around at all, if you have to date, date someone that you marry, get married at 25 and add to your parent’s nest.

Malvika (name altered) was in her senior year at college in America when she was offered the chance to do a year abroad in London. She loved living in London for a year, taking new classes and exploring Europe. She also happened to meet a guy she started dating! It was an exciting time of her life! Except a few months into the relationship, her parents caught wind of the guy…

“It became this whole thing,” she recounts. “They said to me: well if you like each other, and he knows he wants to come to the US, you should just get married – that way he can get a Greencard and move here.”

On his side, he made the mistake of telling his parents and they similarly made a big deal of the situation. Whilst Malvika was trying to figure out how she felt about him, it became a rapidly escalating situation, as if her romance had been put in a pressure cooker. He started looking for a ring. And then finally Malvika called it all off, shell-shocked from what had just happened.

When she first told me her story, I reacted with acknowledging that “casual dating” was not allowed in Indian culture, but she had a more refined point to make on the forced labeling and compartmentalization around dating:

 It’s almost like the pressure of seeing dating as something marriage-focused leads us to then immediately title things as “casual” “serious” “fling” rather than being able to be more fluid about the definition of the relationship and to allow us to really just enjoy the experience as we figure out how we really feel. 

– Malvika on how Indian attitudes to dating often lead to unnecessary compartmentalization

It’s no wonder why many Indian children decide to hide dating activity from their parents. Their parents just can’t understand that they might be feeling it out without an agenda first. In some cases, you are open to marriage but don’t know if this person is the one from day 1. In other cases, you might not be looking to get married any time soon, but might be enjoying someone’s company temporarily.

In any case, the costs of the lack of understanding of dating as a part of a normal adult life are numerous and not trivial. I give an overview of 4 main damages.

I. Inconvenience: the double life

The inconvenience of dating that you have to hide can be extreme. Some people are literally having to live double lives to the level where they could register for MI-6 (the UK spy agency James Bond, if that’s even his real name, is part of) and skip the training! Heck, they could deliver the training! People hide that they are seeing someone, going on holiday with someone, living with someone. It’s often a many-for-one deal — you get to hide many activities in that double life. Many people are hiding that they drink alcohol, go clubbing or wear a bikini. The level of in-authenticity of the image projected to parents and elders is UNREAL, and very ironic considering parents will go on about how close and tight-knit Indian families are. Yes, the fake personas in the family are very tight-knit!

II. Confusion: Why are things not the way they are supposed to be?

When the adults you love and trust the most in your life have taught you that marriage is the only acceptable way to be physically or emotionally intimate with someone, you can end up being extremely confused when you realize this is NOT how the real world operates.

A few years back, I was interning in San Francisco for 3 months, in the summer between my 1st and 2nd years of the Harvard MBA. I was swiping on the dating apps, of course. I met a guy who was handsome and had a car. This was exactly what I was looking for at the time. I had no long-term intentions towards this guy, and we were both on the same page about that. But as my days in San Francisco drew down, I would spend evenings crying about the situation. It’s hard to articulate what exactly I was crying about. I knew he was Mr Right Now, not Mr Right. Yet the tears would fall even for Mr Right Now.

I realize now that the tears were from confusion and guilt. I was confused how it was possible to not lament a ‘break-up’. I felt something was wrong with me for not caring that much about moving away. I had to cry to morally redeem myself somehow. I had to cry because it was what I was supposed to do and sadness and attachment was how I was supposed to feel towards anyone I dated.

Fast forward to me moving back to Boston, I can’t say I missed him. We had a call once and that was it. Sorry, not sorry.

Here’s the truth: Women, like men, are fully capable of dating “casually” (and respectfully — casual dating doesn’t mean you go around breaking hearts!). But when you add in the years of conditioning that you must be a whore or slut and just a terrible heartless woman if you can pull off casual dating, you need to punish yourself with drama or tears to somewhat redeem yourself. Too many Indian women do this to themselves. They could be happier throughout casual dating and enjoy life more if they didn’t have this extra baggage and fake moral weights that their parents and society give to them.

III. Sexual oppression: a hypothesis of long-lasting damage or years of unlearning

A 2013 survey of ~50,000 respondents from 30 countries found that “Indian men and women have sex less frequently and with fewer partners throughout their lives”. Indian women, on average, have two sexual partners in their life, seven fewer than British, American and Australian women. And two is the average, not the median, so there are probably many Indian women with one partner, and then a minority that bring the average up.

Now that’s all well and good if that’s your personal choice to have less sex or fewer partners, but I doubt that these are innate preferences that are consistent across such a large population. Something else is at play. My hypothesis is that guilt around sexuality based on internalized sex-negative messages from parents is part of it. It builds up self-policing, stigma, restraint.

As we grow up, the unlearning we have to do is immense. I grew up in a household where the channel was changed when there was a kissing scene in a Disney movie!

IV. Obsession, fascination and immaturity

On the other end of the spectrum are people who are so obsessed with sex, but in a way that makes them act like a teenager when they are in their 20s or 30s. I’ve heard several Indian women recount interactions with such men.

These men are giggly about sex, ask inappropriate questions of female friends, pretend to know a lot about sex and yet when they talk you realize most of their knowledge must be from movies or porn because it’s not accurate, and find ways to tie the conversation back to sex at unnecessary moments.

“I was telling him about an adult toy business a friend set up and was talking about the journey to set up the business, the market research, the marketing, and then a giggly look came across his face,” Malvika recounts of a date, “So do you have a vibrator?” he asked.

Concluding thoughts: Love is a river and I will keep flowing

I write about these difficulty and icky topics because they used to have a grip on my life when I was younger, and I know they crush women who are subject to conservative cultures everywhere. I do it for awareness, for conversation, for growth ultimately.

I don’t do it to offend anyone, or disrespect my family who have been so supportive, even when very old incidents that I dig up don’t reflect well on them. My parents have had the courage and open mind to come on a long and difficult journey with me where we now are actually on the same page on many things (definitely not all things, but that is an unreasonable expectation to hold anyone to).

My sister and I get asked sometimes how our parents are so progressive. And part of the credit goes to their being open to discussion but part to us for bringing them along for the ride, even when it was inconvenient. For the most part, we did not lead double lives. Living a double life isn’t good for your health and is a colossal waste of energy and what you have to give in this world. Hiding does you no favors. So since I started blogging in 2012, I’ve done the opposite of hiding: writing.

I do it because love is a river that no dam can hold back from flowing.