The anti-privacy era of digital dating has made life difficult for two-timers and serial killers alike. First came the #AreWeDatingTheSameGuy Facebook groups, and now Americans have the Tea app—where women swap date details to check if their matches are married, a sex offender, or just the kind of guy who gifts every woman the same perfume. It saves lives and sometimes has the entertainment capacity of a horror movie.
I am not sure if the app is the revolution of the century or just overkill. The same sting operations are happening in every corner of the internet. Reddit, X, and Instagram have been facilitating similar services for a while now. The college senior who started sending public Snaps of her boyfriend in 2018 was onto the same thing. “Let other people claim him before you commit to him,” she said. Social media accounts such as @SheRatesDogs (where women posted manipulative, creepy, funny, or downright awful messages they received from men) became so popular that the admin started selling t-shirts with her username. Hell, even Google Docs sheets have been passed around with the title ‘Guys to avoid’. Women even lather themselves in glitter in case their date is secretly married. He takes the glitter home to his wife—who, by the way, is watching the same reels.
These whisper networks have exposed many Tinder Swindlers and also inspired the script of Ladies vs Ricky Bahl (2011).
Also read: Is getting back with an ex a bad idea? It’s Delusion Central
Discarded treasure?
Due diligence is mandatory since we’re all pulling dates out of the same apps. The primary step in my circles is to check the mutuals list in the match’s Instagram following. The first siren goes off if there are a lot of women on that list. Then start the girl-to-girl interviews—how do you know this guy? The sisterhood hardly disappoints. Take influencer Sakshi Shivdasani, for example. When a stranger slid into her DMs asking about a man, she came through by confirming whether he was still active on Hinge. My coworker came through the same way when she told me that our mutual Hinge match has a flat personality.
Don’t get me wrong, this compulsive vetting is definitely controversial. It’s one thing to expose a rapist, but to out a 20-something who still sleeps with soft toys? Funny but unnecessary. But that’s how far we are going to ensure physical and emotional safety.
But at this rate, we might as well start walking around with a Post-it on our foreheads, putting out in writing who we are dating, and what all is wrong with him. Or maybe we can build an app or something that pings if you and your flatmate have matched with the same guy. Because that’s been happening a lot.
Two mates in a Lajpat Nagar PG found themselves talking about the same movie, the same restaurant and the same songs when they unknowingly started dating the same neighbour. But before they even got to confronting him, they had to address the elephant in the room—the bold, Comic Sans ‘Family’ tattoo on his left arm. Both girls were instantly icked out. Predictably, the double–dater was left in the wilderness, neither of the roommates too keen to keep him.
A similar operation was famously run at the Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology campus in Patiala. The allegations against the perpetrator were far more serious. A WhatsApp group created by two second-year students, titled Did he date you?, soon grew to 12 members—half based in Patiala, the rest their Facebook-linked friends scattered across different cities. Apparently, the guy was manipulating all these women into sharing their private pictures and feigning exclusivity. He was also borrowing money from all of them. On the day of judgement, he was exposed in a college-wide broadcast WhatsApp message. And this is how you make the world safer for other women.
The fact of the matter is that women talk—especially about their dates. Their friends know the scene-to-scene breakdown of the first date, the cheesy tattoo on his arm, and the length of his bookshelf. His pictures are passed around like police sketches. Call it a survival instinct if you must—and it really is that once you strip away the petty badmouthing part. One woman’s trash may be another woman’s treasure. But is it? Really?
Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)