Love story #2022. Aditi took a heave of sigh and looked…
Tags: Lovestory, Dating, Love, Dating App

Aditi took a heave of sigh and looked at the date. She had just turned 28 last week. The birthday was fun, she got to spend time with her friends but it was an exception nowadays since every one of her friends had grown busy with their own lives, and her being single is slowly creeping up on her. Aditi knew that she’s had her fair share of ups and downs in life but she’s definitely had enough with the (f)uck boys whom she had been dating unfortunately. With 30 fast approaching, the alarm bells that had been going off in her parents’ mind for a while have slowly started to go off in her mind as well.

She looks around her and finds that almost all her friends had gotten married and some had even started to invite her to their kids’ first and second birthdays. Increasingly her posse is growing smaller day by day and She’s now finding herself doing things alone which would she never would have thought of doing alone. Her partners in crime have finding partners of their own.

And let’s not even get into the dating apps, they are a problem of their own. The ever increasing swipes, constant chats, the effort required to establish a connection with someone you like, only to see it broken by shitty conversations and at times borderline pervy solicitation of her pictures and selfies was emotionally tiring. This constant back and forth and ever-increasing disappointments has had a profound impact and changed her view of relationships.

She does understand the term happily single and embraces the benefits of it and does find a lot of benefits that others don’t have, but she didn’t plan on being single all her childhood. The constant let downs from the conversations she’s had on the apps, the endless list of shitty first dates, and the FOMO that’s been building in her slowly have completely destroyed any hopes she had towards finding a simple, loyal, no-nonsense partner. All that she ever expected from him was a shoulder to lean on when things are not great.

She’d been constantly prioritizing her career over finding a partner because of all these struggles and at 28 it seems like she cannot escape into focusing on her career once more.

Her hopes and dreams and the magic that surrounded the anticipation of who her life partner was going to be, is nothing but a sliver of what it once was.

Now with this in mind, her one solid option of finding someone who would take her seriously without hurting her would be the guys her parents have been raring to find for her. The parent’s version of the Indian matchmaking. Aunts, Uncles, and family friends would all band together at a moment’s notice to find her a boy that they think would match her.

This isn’t a bad idea considering the fact that she would not get hurt anymore, but she also has to contend with the fact that the search would be incredibly narrow (caste, financial status, career, educational background, family background) and it would be a miracle if the boy turned out to be the one from her dreams. She feels she’s not ready to drop the hat yet. She still wants to preserve a little bit of her childhood wonder of who her partner is going to be

So for one last time, she takes a huge breath and decides to dive once again into the world of dating apps with hopes of finding someone who sweeps her off her feet.

She decides to search for dating apps that focus on people with serious intent. She comes across entangle.

She enters her basic information, her interests, preferences, and uploads her carefully handpicked dating app photos. She then comes across this personality test that she is forced to take by the app. She answers the first 10 questions, but she is urged to take more in order to find her a better match. She answers another 20 questions before she’s decided that it’s enough.

Now she’s expecting to see a screen where all the suitable boys’ profiles are displayed to her so that she could start swiping. Instead, she is shown two screens. The first screen is just a chat screen and the second one looks a screen that provides dating tips, advice, etc.

Now she learns that the app sets her up on a blind date(match) every Thursday. The matches are selected based on a compatibility score, for example, Varun has 90% compatibility and Yash has 65% compatibility with her, etc.

The app makes a sound prompt (a short musical ping of sorts) and just like that she’s been matched with someone.

The app would then go on to ask three ice breaker questions which now seems like both of them have to answer, for the answers to be revealed.

She liked harry potter, and coincidentally Varun liked harry potter too. So both of them are asked whether the usage of the love potion by Romilda Vane on Ron Weasley was good or bad, and they are asked to answer it.

She also liked Friends a lot, and guess who else liked Friends, Varun!. You get the idea. So now they are asked whether Ross and Rachel were on a break, and did it actually matter?

Finally, since both of them shared a deep interest for Classical music, they are both asked what their favorite composition was, and which Philharmoniker do they dream to go to one day with her significant other.

Now you can kind of sense what is going to happen. Either they both answer completely way off of each other or it could be something interesting. Nonetheless, they both have enough to talk about right off the bat without ever worrying about how to start the conversation, what pickup line to use, etc. It’s just simple conversation at it’s best.

Fortunately, their answers were just far apart to provoke a short but meaningful conversation that made them understand each other and their perspective of the world. Aditi feels a connection of sorts and she felt like she knew who the other person was, their personality, their character. She can’t believe that she is finally enjoying a conversation that doesn’t ask anything of her, and that she can speak her mind freely without worrying if she is going to be judged, since both are actually ANONYMOUS.

Yea, did I forget to mention that? Both of them don’t even know what the other person looks like, their interests, their names, nothing, zip, nada. Although the app does have a plan.

The app is constantly analyzing their texts for positive sentiments like confidence, cheerful, neutral, supportive, caring, etc. Also, the app is looking out for negative sentiments like dismissive, ignorance, or just pure hostile.

The app senses that the conversation is fairly positive, and now decides that it needs to move the conversation to the next stage. Helping them get to know each other better.

The app now presents them with an option of sharing each other’s information at a predetermined milestone. So one their chat count reaches a 100 messages their picture can be shared if both of them choose to do so. At 150 messages their height and at 200 messages their fitness levels, etc

At these milestones the app prompts with an affirmative message that reads, “Hey, it seems like you two are hitting it off, why don’t you both share your information and get to know more?”

Aditi and Varun share their pictures and other information. Aditi finds that Varun is not her usual type but she likes the connection that she’s built with him. It’s somehow as if, the connection she had built with him is making him look better.

And now for the grand finale, after 500 messages… the app presents them both an option to go on a first date.

Aditi is like, “Whaaaa, this is too soon!”. I mean according to the old guard, isn’t the guy supposed to make the move? And according to the evolving new social standards women make the move as well, but she feels the timing may be too soon.

The app provided presented them an option to go to the new French restaurant that opened in town. She knew that it was a good date spot, it was also in a safe neighborhood and equidistant to both of them. And on top of everything, they both even got a discount.

And just like that, without any one of them making a move, Aditi and Varun are thinking about going on their first date.

The app recognized the positive feelings from the conversation and nudged them to take a leap of faith and see where it goes. I mean, instead of being alone on a Friday night, they both now have an option of meeting someone whom they’ve already connected with over dinner.

The reason why a blind date is scheduled every Thursday by the app is to urge everyone to go on a date the next day without overthinking it too much. There may be cons to this approach, but if the conversation was good, why not take the chance of meeting them and getting a fuller picture?

Both of them say yes and they both go on a date.

The app later schedules Aditi to join a short 1-hour anonymous group call with 5 other women who’ve gone on a date just like her. The only guideline provided to them by the app is to talk about how their date go and not talk about who they dated. Surprisingly to Aditi, everyone had a good chat and ended up sharing their experiences. Some even strongly voiced their opinions on how the date went for Aditi and one of them even told her to go on a second date.

The same happens for Varun as well.

Both of them are also told to rate each other on a scale of 1 to 10 for pleasantness, intriguing chat, overall feeling, how nice the other person was, etc.

The next day, the app offers them an option to either keep the chat going or say a short goodbye and move onto to the next match. The only catch is that, they will not get a blind date until they have the chat going on. So they have to commit to someone and risk on missing out meeting new people or choose to meet new people and risk missing out on Varun.

Aditi feels like she had a good experience but also wants to see what’s out there. That’s not a bad choice at all considering she had one of the best dating experiences in a while on the app. She finally feels hopeful and less anxious about missing out on someone. So she sends Varun a nice goodbye message and jokingly tells him that if the app was ever to match them again, she would definitely marry him. And off they both went onto their next match.

Aditi repeats the same thing over and over again a few times and by date number 5, she is starting to have second thoughts about saying goodbye to Varun. She felt that Varun was probably the best of all.

Date number 6,7 and 8 goes by and now Aditi is kicking herself for not asking Varun’s number and is also kind of hoping that the app would somehow match her with Varun again.

Date number 9 comes along, and the chat seems to be a little too familiar. They both hit it off and Aditi now feels that maybe she found somebody she’s finally interested in. The app promps both of them to share their information and when she saw the picture, Aditi knew that she is in deep trouble.

Fin.