Dating apps and lonely women

It may sound strange, but true. Dating apps have arrived in our country like a silent revolution rather than like a cultural shock. Serious academicians and psychologists have already focused on these apps and started their research into various aspects of people who visit these sites. To their surprise if not chagrin, these researchers have come across many interesting things about the nature and attitude of people at the sites and their ramifications on our personal, domestic and social life.

Within days when I unknowingly donned the role of a researcher myself, I stumbled upon many heart-wrenching tales from women! Prabha (name changed) was 52 years old, a teacher in a private school in a city in Karnataka. One day she herself sent me a message. Later when I went online she told me all about her family. She was getting a meager half salary of 7000,thanks to the pandemic. As her only son was in the college and her husband had been bed ridden for the last two years, Prabha had turned to a dating app on the say-so of a friend to find a person who could help her. When I asked her why she had texted me she told me that she wanted to meet only men senior to her in age. From that norm it is clear that she was looking for a genuine person who could help her without longing for a physical relationship with her.

Anita Sood (name changed) was a 40-year old Punjabi woman, a beautiful mother of two daughters aged 13 and 11. Her life story was even more painful and shocking. Before going to the Gulf her husband had left the three of them with her in laws and she was almost cut of from her hubby, thanks to the callous attitude of her in laws. Even the husband paid little attention to ensure the financial freedom of his wife and children.

She took to a dating app in search of a shoulder to lean upon. When I came in her touch, she poured out her heart. From her chat it was clear she was so desperate in life that she kept asking me to help her elope with some well-to-do person along with her two children!

At another app, I came across a 41-year old Muslim teacher from Hyderabad. She had a different story to tell. She was pious and God-fearing yet modern and bold in her outlook of life. Instead of using her picture on the site, she used a beautiful quote about life as her DP. She was not for any physical relationships and hook-ups. From my series of chats with her, I understood that she decided to remain a spinster in life after witnessing the terrible and torturous life of her elder sister and her pitiable death at the hands of her cruel husband.

With the death of her mother too, she took up the responsibility of her aged father. "What are you looking for here?"To this question, she told me that she was searching for a good person as a friend who could make her forget her loneliness and past without any kind of worldly relationships.

The story of Vachana (name changed) is different from the stories of the above three women.She was a 25-year-old mother of a daughter from Hyderabad. She was a diploma holder working in a software company. After her delivery , problems cropped up in her life and the hubby had sent her back to her parents. At the time of my chatting with her, her daughter was seriously ill and she asked me for some financial help in our very first chat.

Though I was shocked at her unusual plea, I gave her my mite if not all that she had asked me for. There is a twist in the tale. She fell out with me at the end of the day for not giving the sum of the amount she had asked me and she threatened me of lodging a complaint against me with police. And that was her state of frustration and helplessness.

These four stories are from four women of different ages, who are from different places with different social, cultural backgrounds. All of them could speak English well. But what is common to them is their sense of pain, neglect, misery, and loss. On the one hand, it definitely makes one happy finding our women in great numbers at these apps and talking about their sexual orientation and "preferences".

From the point of our women lib, it is really something to write home about. But when will our men change and stop seeing woman only as a sex symbol? When will our society stop blaming only Eve for the fall of man? To see these things happen, perhaps we have to wait till the cows come home.