“What’s the scene?”: 6 Factors of Dating in Bangalore

We’re in the book section at Landmark in Orion Mall. Being the nerd that I am, I’m getting pretty excited about this 3-for-2 book sale that’s going on and browsing happily through the titles, when a white hardcover catches my eye. It features a big red and yellow balloon heart, and reads India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21^st Century. I sometimes suspect that the universe is quite the conspirator because I had just decided a week ago to attempt a blog post on dating in urban India. I happily show my boyfriend, who gives me a look, and tells me I better not use it to psychoanalyze his actions. I assure him I won’t.

The inside flap explains that India in Love explores the love, marriage, and sexual revolutions occurring in India today. I flip the book over and the back cover features the mesmerizing Ira Trivedi, and I’ve decided she’s just the woman who can give me a little background on the anecdotes about dating and relationships I’ve been able to glean from my friends here in Bangalore.

But first things first…

Before I delve into talking about dating in Bangalore, I’m going to be completely honest about some prejudices I might have in writing this post. During the past six months, I’ve received unwanted attention from men who either ignored or were unaware that I was not interested in their advances, which made me rather frustrated about male-female dynamics here. I’ve experienced an unfortunate episode in which a certain former friend of mine dealt with some unrequited feelings for me in a rather reprehensible way, and left me very upset and pissed off. After spending four years at Brown where people were extremely socially and politically conscious, I felt thrust into a world of cultural difference and gender relations that I was neither familiar nor comfortable with.

However, these experiences made me curious about what I didn’t understand about the social scene in Bangalore. They’ve also pushed me to be more assertive; to stand tall(-er than I already am) and to voice my opinion. My dear Bangalore, over the past six months, you have molded me into quite the feminist.

And by feminist, I mean…

Setting the scene

In addition to casual conversations I’ve had about relationships, I was able to talk to five of my friends, both male and female, about the dating scene here. They’re all in their 20s (except for one who is 19), and were able to give me some insights into the relationship dynamics of India’s Silicon Valley.

The reality is that the people I talked to belong to certain socioeconomic groups (namely middle- and upper-class) and had views on dating that aren’t shared by everyone. However, I’m sure that even if I interviewed 100 people, I would still get a wide range of opinions on the matter. Even Trivedi, the author of India in Love, admits that after interviewing over 500 people across India, she came to the conclusion that vastly different kinds of dating and relationships coexist in a culture with evolving social expectations. Joan Robinson is on point in declaring that, “Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.”

However, Trivedi does make an interesting point in her book about why she personally focuses on the middle class. She reasons that the “Great Indian Middle Class” will greatly influence what kind of behaviors and attitudes will become the norm in the future. Although only 3.5% of the population in India is estimated to be part of the middle class today, it is projected that by 2027, India will have the biggest middle-class population in the world. Furthermore, ties between the middle class may end up being stronger than what was traditionally seen as some of the great social ties of the past: caste and religion. India is also one of the world’s youngest countries, whose youth are growing up in a period of great technological, political, and economic change, which hints at the possibility of great social change as they come of age.

So what’s the scene? 

1. Acceptability. One of the first things I was curious about was how acceptable dating was in today’s society. Everyone I talked to agreed that it’s definitely more acceptable now than it was even one generation prior, but it still largely depends on the family. A family might be totally cool with their kids dating, or insist they date someone “appropriate” (perhaps of the same caste, religion, or class) or preferred if their kids didn’t date at all until they finished school because the parents felt dating was a waste of time when one could be studying.

2. Family influence. J explained to me that dating often comes with the specter of marriage, which has traditionally been about the joining of families, and thus brings up the importance of family compatibility. What if one side of the family feels uncomfortable that non-vegetarian food has been served at a family gathering, for example? Or that certain rituals or prayers are performed that they are not familiar with?

Therefore, she explains, some families still put significant weight on similarity – of caste, creed, and religion, in terms of a match. J told me about her aunt and uncle who felt they had to elope because even though they were the same religion and caste, their families spoke slightly different dialects of the same language, which was an upsetting signifier of difference.

D told me the story of her brother and his girlfriend, who have been together for nine years, but have kept their relationship a secret from D’s parents. This is because her brother’s girlfriend comes from a difficult family situation where the father has been remarried multiple times and also struggles with alcoholism, and her brother is afraid that his parents would make them separate because they wouldn’t want their son to be exposed to such a “bad” family situation.

The reality is though, that the dating scene is not about to shrink anytime soon. And if a young couple feels unable to confide in their parents about a romantic relationship they have chosen for themselves, a significant portion of their emotional support network is cut off. Perhaps the success of romantic relationships is also affected by parents’ willingness to be supportive, or at least provide a listening ear. Additionally, I know that many of my friends feel as if they have to lie to their parents about their whereabouts when they are actually with their significant other, which can strain the familial relationship.

3. Personal space. Something I realized personally is the large influence that the U.S.’s culture of dorming has, in terms of young adults moving away from home and family, and therefore moving away from those factors directly influencing their relationships. Another was the significance of personal space in terms of determining the culture of dating and relationships. I think a 20-year-old with his own apartment versus one who shares a room with several siblings may have a different kind of (physical) relationship with his significant other.

4. Community influence. I was struck by the large influence that family and the community at large had on young peoples’ relationships. P talked about how community had a lot of positive things to offer, like support in times of need, but also how neighborhood gossip meant that people’s private business was not very often kept private, and that one had to be aware of the public eye. He also affirmed something that I had heard before, which was that until recently, if a guy and girl were seen walking around together, it was assumed that they were either siblings or a married couple.

S told me about her neighbors’ reactions to her live-in relationship with a German expat. Although they lived in a nice apartment in an affluent neighborhood, she felt that her neighbors still looked down on her for living with a man who she wasn’t married to, and one neighbor even tried to talk her out of the relationship. In fact, it was just recently in 2010 that a verdict by the Supreme Court finally legalized live-in relationships in India. However, it still stipulated that the couple needed to meet some requirements such as holding themselves out to society as being “akin to spouses.”

5. Peer pressure. Another aspect that came up time and again was how couples were also very conscious of the opinions of their peers. R told me that her friends would question where her boyfriend was, especially if she was out and they weren’t together. They sometimes asked rather prying questions about their relationship as well. D also talked about how her friends would judge whether her boyfriend was “socially acceptable,” in terms of what social groups he was a part of, and how “cool” he was. I myself have felt how superficial “the scene” can be at bars and clubs, and how looks play a significant role here. It seems that grooming yourself impeccably here is a must. Even my boyfriend asked me once, “Why don’t you shave your arms, is that like a hippie thing?”

I was all like, damn, girls here must feel the pressure.

Just be pin-up pretty. NBD.

6. Gender dynamics. Something I was very curious about was the male-female dynamic in romantic relationships. Something that both J and D talked about was that either they themselves or their friends had felt the pressure to conform to how their boyfriends wanted them and expected them to be.

Another aspect was the pushiness of male suitors, which I myself have been rather frustrated by. In her book, Trivedi casually mentions, “Most Indian girls I know, including myself, have dealt with obsessive Indian male behaviour” (43). She ventures to say that aggressive male pursuits may come from a culture where the avenues of love and romance have not yet quite matured, and where people imitate the attitudes and behaviors present in pop culture.

For example, a typical Bollywood scenario may unfold as follows: “the hero aggressively pursues his love-interest, teasing her, chasing her, harassing her, displaying his love for her in front of her friends; the hero, who is usually an obsessive romantic will not accept no for an answer, and eventually wins her over” (44).

Over these past months, I’ve felt lost and angry in a culture where a woman’s ‘no’ is not accepted as a definitive ‘no.’ How does this come to be? Is it because women feel that asserting their desire is socially unacceptable and men assume that therefore they need to be forceful to get past this initial ‘no’? This dangerous norm of male entitlement has been extremely troubling for me.

Getting personal

I wrote this blog post because I had a hard time understanding the differences in dating culture between the U.S. and India. I hadn’t realized it at first, but this had caused me to fixate on finding and understanding difference. But, I had this revelation when I was talking to J over coffee. She started talking about how she cares about what her friends and family think about her boyfriend, how she felt it was important whether her and her boyfriend were compatible, if their lifestyles matched – things like that. Things I honestly wasn’t interested in because they were things I already knew; things I would question and consider myself in a relationship. And it hit me. I had been so single-minded in trying to find differences in dating culture, when at the core of it a lot of us have the same considerations, anxieties, and questions when relating to someone on a personal level. It was an important reminder for me to keep an inquiring but open mind.