Dissecting the Dating prohibition in Indian culture

A number of my readers asked me to write about this topic. I’ve often referred to anecdotes about dating as an Indian woman and indeed prior dating blog-posts are written from my perspective as an Indian woman, but you wanted me to address it head-on. Here it is!

---

The prohibition 

When I was growing up (the 90s and 00s), dating was a taboo in large tracts of Indian society. I wasn’t allowed to date when I was a teenager, and even into my 20s, there were rules and principles governing dating, some unsaid and some explicitly expressed.

Many Indian parents’ prohibitive attitudes towards dating were/are based on several factors:

1. The taboo of pre-marital sex and the value placed on virginity
2. The fear of losing one’s culture and becoming fully “westernized”
3. The fear of unwanted pregnancy or STIs
4. The fear of going “off track” academically or in your career because romance is a distraction
5. The belief that engaging in any form of romantic/sexual activity should be geared towards marriage and is a waste of time if not
6. What relatives, family friends and  “society” at large will say if they catch whiff of dating — essentially that they will insinuate that you have failed as parent by exposing your child to all the hazards 1-5 above

The challenger’s perspective

When I dug deep into why I so opposed each reason, I uncovered philosophical and deep rifts between the average Indian parent’s mindset and my own. Here’s my challenge to all the reasons above.

The Pre-marital sex ban: a way of owning women 

As my boyfriend put it “In every other field, more experience is considered better. And yet when it comes to sex, some people reverse the logic. It doesn’t make sense”.

I went through the dilemma during my early 20s on what decisions to make, and ultimately I concluded that I was not someone who was going to be judged by narrow-minded men. The ban on pre-marital sex is very asymmetrically applied across genders. Needless to say, the rule is more for women than men.

The desire of men to be the “first” has a lot of negative connotations: the desire to control a woman; to desire to deny a woman a reference point (or several); the desire to be able to get away with being not that great in bed as a result; the desire to get a woman to be attached to you because she hasn’t had the experience to realize that sex is just sex, and sex is not love. Furthermore, given that the average age of marriage creeps up every year and many marriages are now happening when people are in their mid-30s, it’s absurd to deny people their basic biological needs for so long.

Yet parents somehow are attached to the idea of sending their daughter into a marriage with no dating or sexual experience – which surely can’t serve you well, but then they’re not prioritizing you, are they? The ban on pre-marital sex is deeply patriarchal and misogynist.

Now, it would be equally unprogressive of me to say that people should be engaging in pre-marital sex. What I’m against here is the “should” and “should not” language and moral weight Indian society has put on sex. My belief is it’s a personal choice, based on the logic that each person owns their own body. To argue that it is not a personal choice and add moral weight to it is to imply that each person’s body is owned by not just that person but also society. This may sound absurd, but a lot of Indian cultural rules are based on joint ownership of people’s bodies, minds and lives.

Fear of “westernization”: a way to put blockers on adopting new ideas

I believe people should be free to adopt whatever practices and rituals make them happier, and “losing culture” should be a secondary concern. Ultimately, though we are very distracted by success, money, prestige, status etc., life is about the pursuit of happiness. All those things are supposed to make you happy. No one’s getting brownie points for keeping impractical aspects of various cultures alive if they have no modern relevance and compromise your happiness. But the rift here between parents and children comes down to philosophy again – as you’ll see further in this article.

Fear of STIs and unwanted pregnancies: a lack of understanding of risk management

Firstly, heard of contraception anyone? Thankfully, we were taught about it in school, because there was no way we were learning about it from our parents on time. I really want to do a skit where an Indian parent decides to talk about contraception when someone is 35, finally declaring they might be ready.

By neglecting to talk about contraception and instead harping on the unrealistic abstinence bandwagon, most Indian parents are actually putting their children more at risk of a negative outcome.

Fear of going “off track” : what is the “track” anyway?

Indian parents must be very romantic in some sense, because many believe that romance is so all-encompassing that you might forget to go to class, to study, to eat even. You may end up being a drunk poet like Devdas, unemployed, and obsessed with your one love, chasing it like a moth to the flame. If your learnings about love are from Bollywood movies, you may believe this to be the case. If you get some real-life experience (my recommended option), you may discover the following:

i. Your romantic life is one out of many aspects of your life – your attention will never be 100% on it, because you are a complete human with friends, hobbies, a career etc. Balancing all these things effectively can definitely be challenging at times and sometimes one aspect looms larger than others and causes you to neglect others. Effective balance is a learned skill, a muscle. The more practice you get, the better you get as you learn your own priorities and about yourself. By being forbidden to date earlier, you put off developing this muscle until later.

ii. It’s totally possible to work effectively through break-ups and in fact break-ups can trigger immense personal growth. I had a break-up in April 2019, and knocked my work project out of the park at that time – getting glowing reviews and a promotion a few months later.

Remember that time when you couldn’t do anything for months but lie around because of your crush? And then you became an alcoholic, and lost all your ambitions and would just sing Bollywood songs whilst longing for your love. No? Oh, that’s right – because it didn’t happen. You still brushed your teeth, did your assignments and crushed it in the debate competitions. Because you are a Badass. And Badasses can handle a full life which includes a break-up or few.

Fear of wasting time: Is fun and being happy a waste of time?!

There is a pervasive belief that dating should only be marriage-oriented. To some extent, I understand. Casual dating is no utopia, it can be a real mine-field. But to some extent, dating only for marriage excludes a lot of fun and learning. As I mentioned earlier, the point of life is to have a good time as much as circumstances permit. There is a philosophical divide between Indian parents and their children on this very issue. Many Indian parents would not agree that the primary purpose of life is having a good time and being happy – they view life as a duty to the community, a duty that involves “timely” achievement of milestones such as a stable job, marriage, children and as much as possible a life that is “mistake-free”. This comes into conflict with a lot of us who will not necessarily become happy by hitting those milestones at those times.

“Love is waste of time”  – Tongue-in-cheek song from PK

We are different, we scream. We need to discover and build upon our differences through experimentation in all areas of our life, including dating. Most dates teach you something about yourself or about the human condition – even if they are boring or don’t go anywhere and even if they are mean.

Concerns around what others will think: the timeless problem

Anxiety around ‘what society thinks’ is a problem that afflicts older and modern generations alike. Our parents cared what Auntie down the road would think, we care what our Instagram followers think. Different flavor, same core problem. For evolutionary reasons, we’re hard-wired to care what other people think. All we can do is i) consciously try to care less what others think and ii) to try to shift society to a new equilibrium of lower judgment and more love and acceptance of differences. Within reason, the ideal society would simply think “Each to their own”.

The consequences of not being allowed to date

Indian parents are often stunting the development of women. The dating prohibition prevents girls from becoming women who are comfortable with their sexuality, know how to flirt, and know how to date. A number of my Indian women friends, now in their late 20s or early 30s often tell me they still feel nervous going on dates and understanding the dynamics of the modern dating world because they got so late to the game.

The prohibition distances girls and women from their parents: they feel like they can’t be themselves and have to be secretive about dating. And in some cases, it actually puts them in more dangerous situations as a result of having to be secretive.

Mean things exist in the world and being sheltered from them doesn’t make them go away. By holding back women from experiencing the full world, warts and all, Indian parents are compromising the development of women into confident, worldly adults.

---

What a mess: where do we go from here?

I believe Indian parents really do love and want their children to be happy. The more broken step is that they don’t really understand what makes their children happy. They believe the key to happiness is a safe life and a dutiful life that has the stamp of approval from “society”. We know it is the life that is truest to ourselves that makes us happy  – and yes, we’re constantly changing – we want the freedom to grow, learn and express our true selves. And dating is a key field where we grow, learn and express our true selves.

We need more honest conversations with our parents – ones that take us to the deeper philosophical rifts and surface them, laying them bare so we can examine if this is how we want to live, ones that call to test our love for each other – hopefully it is stronger than our fear of what Auntie will think. I believe it is – and that we have made and will continue to make ever more progress, but this post is dedicated to all you girls out there, who have been pushing the boundaries and fighting the good fight – you are tired but you are winning, keep it up.

 

 

 

 

20 Lessons from my 20s: Lesson 4 – count the things that can’t be counted

“Occupation: Housewife”, it said on my grandmother’s passport, next to her face. It almost made me cry.

To see such a great woman described by such a mundane word felt like gross injustice. I looked at her and said: “Housewife?”. She didn’t have much of a reaction to it. Generations of women have not had much of a reaction to anything used to describe them, because sexism and misogyny is so prevalent that we’re like fish in water. I thought about what words I would prefer. “Homemaker” was an improvement – she had made a home for her children and her grandchildren and that was no easy task. But even that didn’t fully capture it. There is no word or phrase that fully captures the value of the thankless tasks carried out by people who weren’t/aren’t out in the workplace, or were/are in the workplace part-time.

“Being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done” said one of my female friends. She is one of the smartest people I know, a genius whose academic prowess at University always used to impress me. I believe her totally.

Full-time work is so glorified in our society that anyone who is doing less than is made to feel like they aren’t really a “heavy-hitter” or ambitious or contributing to society. This, of course, is a load of BS. Many people who are not working full-time are contributing more to society than people who spend 12 hours in an office attending meetings, pea-cocking in presentations and pushing paper and creating the illusion of adding value.

I am now convinced – any successful household needs significant excess “bandwidth” to function, thrive and enjoy life. I want to draw a distinction here: it’s not that people who are working like crazy are bad people and people who aren’t are good. Disentangling behavior and identity is key. It’s quite simply that work takes up bandwidth. When you work 60+ hours a week, you lose task bandwidth and emotional bandwidth to deal with other issues. The people who are not working full-time are the ones who have the bandwidth to be present to listen to your problems, to solve your problems, to fix things around the house, to change that light-bulb, to remind you when a bill is due, to fix healthy meals, and most importantly to CARE. You can outsource a ton of tasks in your life if you have money, such as cleaning, cooking, personal admin, but you can’t yet outsource the tasks of caring and loving. I’m not sure you ever could because of the authenticity required for the completion of these tasks.

A household where no one has any bandwidth to do these tasks is an incomplete household. A person who has no bandwidth to care or love is an incomplete person. This is the type of person I could have become pretty easily with no formally assigned familial responsibilities and an intense job, and sometimes when I zone out mid-conversation with a family member or friend to think about my to-do list or concerns, I feel like I am behaving like this person.

But for the most part in my 20s, I consciously chose to not become that person. When I had time off, I chose to come home and spend time with family rather than travel the world. When I had the option of more time off, I took it off to spend it with family.  I know the storyline of “I messed up my 20s and I’m now a transformed phoenix” is more appealing, but I’m not one for easy storylines, and I am cautiously proud – I actually did a lot of things right in my 20s. I focused on doing a lot of things that didn’t “count” on my resume, my Facebook, or my outwardly status in society – but they counted a lot to my relationships with my family and my friends.

As I go into my 30s though, I feel more fearful about maintaining this balance. My parents are getting older and I expect and want my career to grow. I can’t even imagine  adding children to the mix. I find it hard to balance my desire to make change in the world which requires focused hard work, and to be a person who can be a source of positive energy and attention for my family and friends. How do you do it people? or rather – do you do it at all?

As I think about it all and what “success” means to me in the next decade, I want to keep a quote in mind:

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” – Albert Einstein

My grandmother has tirelessly performed the tasks of caring and loving for 84 years of her life, with no explicit thank you from anyone for a lifetime of more full-time work than any high-powered executive or CEO. It doesn’t “count” on her passport, it counts a million stars worth to me.

 

 

The annoying things the other gender does

In February, in the month of love, I set out to investigate what men and women had to say about the annoying things they have observed and experienced from the opposite gender. I was motivated by the belief that bad things should not be avoided but addressed head-on. I conducted 15 in-depth interviews with a diverse set of men and women from the mid-20s to mid-30s age demographic, mostly from business schools. I talked to people in live-in and long-distance relationships, people who had recently broken up and single people, and then conducted a survey which got 59 heterosexual responses (thank you!!)

My hope is to shed light on some of the common themes that arose and to inspire honest communications between men and women. Likely, there will be some points you will nod your head to, and others you’ll be like “Really?! That’s BS!”. Whilst interviewing, I found some examples where interviewees from the same gender completely disagreed with each other. Ultimately, it turned out, men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus. Every individual seems to be from a different planet entirely. So with a pinch of salt and a solid respect that every individual is an individual, here’s what people had to say about the opposite gender.

Note for survey responses, the options were:
1. Never noticed it as an issue
2. Mildly irritating – means it happens now and again, but I can adapt easily to it
3. Moderately annoying – means it happens now and again, and would be significantly better if changed
4. Very annoying – means it’s common & it bugs me

Men on women: What annoys you the most in dating and relationships?

1. Putting quantity over quality of communication

Several men told me they felt their girlfriends or ex-girlfriends called or texted too often, sometimes without much substance to the conversation. This problem was particularly exacerbated in long-distance relationships. My own take on this is that women must be feeling pressure to keep in touch, keep a bond and keep the guy interested across many miles.

“It shouldn’t feel like an obligation to call everyday” said one guy. “There are many days when I have nothing to say” said another HBS guy (cases and job-hunting aren’t enthralling conversation topics apparently).

In response to how annoying is “Putting quantity over quality of communication e.g. sending me unnecessary texts/having unnecessary conversations for the sake of conversation”, 42% of men reported this trait as moderately to very annoying, versus 28% of women.

2. When women feel entitled or want special treatment just because they are women

The broad issues here are the patchy application of women’s liberation and feminism which was a real bug-bear among many guys I spoke to.

“We like the idea of women’s lib, we just don’t think they’re doing it” — HBS guy.

Whilst the women’s liberation movement posits equality of sexes, it seems it’s still too common for women to expect to be pursued rather than to pursue; to expect to be paid for; or, worst of all, to have the dreaded ‘Princess complex’ where girls’ expectations are simply too high and their gratitude for kind gestures the guy does is simply too low or non-existent.

A common reported manifestation of entitlement was expecting to be paid for on dates. “She just kept talking when the check arrived as if nothing had happened” said one guy. “At least fumble for your purse” lamented another guy. Offering to pay was suggested as a good signal by many guys. “You want to send a partnership signal, not a prostitution signal” said one guy candidly.

42% of men in the survey said that “Feeling entitled to special treatment because of their gender” was moderately to very annoying vs just 8% of women saying the same about men.

3. When women are insecure

42% of men in my survey reported insecurity in the opposite gender as a moderately annoying to very annoying trait, compared with 31% of women. Men in interviews also brought this up.  They mentioned behaviors like changing outfit five times, complaining about breast size and wearing a lot of make-up as turn-offs. “There’s nothing I can do about the size of your breasts” said one guy.

One guy said it was unattractive to him when women wore a lot of make-up: “My favorite photo of me and her is this one where we were just hanging out in my room, lying next to each other and she had no make-up on. I actually prefer that photo to all the dolled-up photos of her at parties. I want to see the girl I’m dating”. Another guy commented that “too much make-up makes most girls look the same, they just look like clones of each other”.

Jealousy was another common reported annoyance. “She would get upset if I ran an errand for a female friend when she was around” reported one guy. Another guy noted that jealousy was only an issue if allowed to fester or turn into anger straightaway: “Just say it at the start and I’ll adjust my behavior accordingly”.

A few men reported that they found it frustrating when women’s self-worth was largely based on the strength of the relationship and when women compared their relationship to those of others.

“She was playing the ‘Who has a better relationship game?’ with her friends, which I felt was completely pointless” said one guy.

Another guy commented that his girlfriend would tell him what other couples were doing and suggest they do the same, which he found annoying: “They send each other news articles and discuss them, we should do that”.

4. When women are obsessed with social media

Several men told me that it was annoying when women spent too much time and effort on  brand-building their social media image. 50% of men reported this as moderately to very annoying in the opposite gender vs 22% of women.  It was even more annoying when women tried to get guys to care more about social media if they didn’t care. “Why are you not posting photos of us on Facebook?” asked one girl to her boyfriend. Another guy reported that one of his ex-girlfriends had tried to get him to put a profile picture of the two of them up, which “just wasn’t my thing”.

“They spent more time getting the perfect photo and hashtag for Instagram than actually enjoying the moment” — Guy about a trip with a bunch of girls.

5. When women confer with other women about relationships

The complaints from guys go from the light-hearted “It just makes you look like an asshole” to the more serious concerns: Are you really getting good advice from your friends?  Does external advice sometimes cloud your thinking? A truism from Sex and the City that I hold very dear is Carrie’s observation that no one on the outside can really ever understand what goes on between two people. “Just talk to the guy” said one guy.

There’s also the concern on compounding baggage when you receive advice. “Sometimes girls can give each other very pessimistic advice” noted one guy. And we all know, starting or maintaining a relationship takes a healthy dose of optimism.

6. Then there were many miscellaneous other reported pet peeves:

• Having to police what you say in case it offends women. One guy noted that he had to change his language and vocabulary when around women. “It changes how you give feedback, what jokes you can make” he said.
• When women don’t make an effort to mix with their boyfriend’s friends
• When women are ‘hangry’: Two guys even reported they carried around snacks to feed their girlfriends for when they felt their glucose levels were running low!
• Decision-making annoyances: Asking for input in little decisions, Looking to the guy to make major decisions, Being indecisive
• Taking too long to get ready and then being consistently late for events. In support of women, a few guys commented “That comes with the territory, you just budget for it”. Though other guys also mentioned that women should budget for it and just start getting ready earlier as being consistently late for events was not cool.
• Fancy bedcovers and fluffy pillows. “Why does the bed need 20 pillows?!” asked one guy

 

Women speak on men: What annoys you the most?

1. Men sometimes do not want to communicate enough, and especially not about their feelings

In my survey, 53% of women said that ‘not wanting to communicate enough’ was a moderately to very annoying trait in men they had dated, vs 29% of men who said the same for women (and no guy said it was very annoying, male responses were all ‘moderately’ responses).

With regards to current or longest past relationships, 33% of women felt they were talking less frequently than they’d like to talk.  The good news (noting this has some selection bias as you wouldn’t interact with someone for too long if they weren’t getting this right) is that most of us have it ‘about right’.

Question: If you are/were in a relationship, how frequently do you talk with your partner versus how much you’d ideally like to talk?

However, the quality of communications is as important as frequency. Even if we’re talking, are we communicating? 42-43% of men and women both said that conversations are often ‘hit and miss’.

Some women reported deeper frustrations:

“I cry sometimes and he just doesn’t understand why” said one girl about her long-distance relationship.  “I don’t think we share our feelings when things get tough” reported an anonymous female survey respondent.

The challenge for us then is how can we really talk when we talk? As one anonymous survey respondent put it, she would like: “Anything beyond the typical “how’s your day?” And “can you pick up Kleenex on the way home”. Real conversation would be nice”

2. Sometimes men just aren’t thinking all that much, which can be disappointing

After a moving tour of a slum in a foreign country, a girl turned to her boyfriend: “Penny for your thoughts?”  He replied honestly :“I have no thoughts”.  Another related frustration was when guys counted watching a sports game as spending quality time with one another, and with their girlfriend. For some girls this seemed like a rather thought-less activity.

3. Having a big ego which manifests itself as:

a) Overconfidence and lack of awareness of real capabilities

Even the guys I interviewed confessed to having experienced this in other guys. One girl dated a guy who claimed earnestly to be in excellent physical shape, proudly telling her tales of biking many miles to work on their first date. On their second date, as he stood there with his beer-belly asking her to carry his back-pack on their 5km walk whilst he was looking for a bench, she was struck by his lack of self-awareness.

b) Not wanting feedback

One girl dated an ‘entrepreneurial type’. He was convinced he was a stellar entrepreneur and didn’t accept feedback on any of his business ideas, even the ones she claimed were ‘obviously stupid’.

4. When men don’t know what they want

47% of women reported ‘not knowing what they want at a start of relationship’ as moderately to very annoying in men, vs 33% of men reporting the same for women. But this still wasn’t quite as much as a pain-point as…

5. When men mislead women

A few women reported it annoying that guys often use misleading language when they were dating. Guys would often indicate they were considering a long-term relationship when they were really just looking for fun.  Several men confirmed to me that this does happen intentionally, and not just due to not knowing what they want.  One girl noted: “The lack of transparency bugs me. You find out what they really wanted when they don’t text back after the first or second dates just because you didn’t have sex”. This begs the question: Would it work if these men just made their intentions clear up-front?

Another annoying trait, especially prevalent in online dating, was when men played games by texting back and forth but not actually asking the girl out.

6. When they show off to other men on sexual conquests

Even more annoying is when these sexual conquests are completely made-up! A girl told me the story of her undergraduate dance: “I went with this cute guy and we danced for many hours. I liked him, but then heard him showing off the next day to other guys that he’d had a “great workout last night” in a suggestive way. That was the end of that”. Sadly, I did get confirmation from a few guys that this happens across men of all ethnicities and surprisingly in the late 20s to early 30s demographic too, and at business school. To the few-to-some guys who do this, please grow up.

7. When men don’t want to commit and are insensitive to women’s biological realities

“Most men just don’t want to commit until they’re 30. They just want to play around because they don’t have that time bomb” — Single female

This type of preference particularly disadvantages women in their late 20s or 30s, because too many guys are still looking for younger girls who give them a long lead time to make up their mind or to explore. I’ve heard several guys rejecting girls based on ‘I’d have to decide too fast or move too fast’. This begs the moral question: Is it reasonable to expect someone with a biological advantage (men) to share the burden of someone with a (relative) biological disadvantage (women)? Isn’t compromise and shouldering the burden of others to some degree a key component of our societies? So should we expect more of the men who avoid ‘older’ women in this regard?

8. Then there were the many miscellaneous annoyances:

• Men can be slobs: The “I-just-stepped-out-of-my-pants-and-didn’t-look-back” look especially is not good décor for any room!
• Cliched compliments like “Your eyes are like stars”. One girl recounted the story of a guy who said to her “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen”. “Just open up any magazine on any page and there’s a woman more beautiful than me there” she replied. The message for men: compliment us genuinely for what you genuinely like, and it doesn’t have to be looks!
• Sometimes men were “not willing to include me in things he does with his friends”
• Interestingly,  a female noted that although some men say they want women to not be obsessed with social media; to not wear make-up and to not spend ages getting ready, the type of women men glorify, talk about and look at are women with polished social media and polished exteriors. There seems to be an inconsistency between what men want and what they say they want. There also seems to be a lack of appreciation of the fact that women don’t just wake up natural goddesses and that there are real trade-offs to looking good.

*******

Overall, we both do things that drive each other crazy. Honest conversations, feedback and just being conscious goes a long way. Though if you still can’t change, incidentally, Anthony Merentino, from Sex and the City said: ‘Some of the best sex I’ve had is with people I can’t stand.’