Before a relationship gets soft-launched on Instagram, it enters a rather sacred place—the group chat with close friends. That’s where the ‘Tall Hinge Guy’, ‘Broke Noida Dude’, and ‘Mr Red Shoes’ get promoted to being mentioned by their actual names. And that’s where he is investigated like a crime scene by a team that misses nothing, from his pre-glow-up Facebook pictures to current LinkedIn mentions. The friend-launch is a rite of passage.
You don’t have to be sure about the guy to talk about him. If you’re not debriefing with your friends after a good, boring, or downright creepy date, are you even dating? Our trainwrecks of love lives are completely useless if they don’t at least entertain our best buddies. A responsible Gen Z live tweets on dates. Sonakshi Sinha gets it. Even though she kept her now husband a super secret for seven years, she was still posting selfies with him on her close friends list on Instagram.
The fastest way a dating app conversation makes it to WhatsApp is in the form of multiple, carefully cropped screenshots. No matter how straightforward those texts are, sometimes it takes a village to dissect what they really mean.
Women like me, who can’t trust their judgment, make it everyone’s business—from childhood buddies to workmates—to analyse their situationships. None of my group chats will pass the Bechdel test, which is perfectly normal. I am so sincere in sharing everything about my flings that I end up talking about the guy I was supposed to block months ago. “How did he reach you then?” my homies ask. “He called from a new number,” I lie. I have given so many fake new numbers to the supposedly blocked guy that one might think he’s running some sort of cartel.
Also read: Polyamory not everyone’s cup of tea—It is a Gen Z love upgrade with new bugs, jealousy glitches
Validation or a tight slap
When juggling multiple nameless prospects, stories can get confusing but real friends keep up with the lore. And you’re not fully immersed in it if you have to ask “which one?” every time a new incident is reported about any of them.
Even with all the online love calculators and perfectly agreeable tarot card readings, the wisdom of besties is unmatched. They know your dating history by heart and the exact shade of red flag you always end up falling for. Whether it’s validation or a tight slap, feedback from friends—especially the ones in stable romantic relationships—is too important to ignore.
My childhood best friend learned her lesson every time she neglected my words of caution. The guy I told her was problematically possessive did turn out to be that. And that one ex-boyfriend who swore off water for the fear of bloating was actually a nutcase—exactly as I predicted. She trusted the genius in me so she avoided introducing any of the losers who came next. And when it was time for me to meet her fiance, the stakes were understandably high. The three of us sat in a nail salon where I studied his informed taste in acrylics and faith in manicures. If he didn’t have my approval then, he sealed it with a bun maska and a kulhad wali chai later in the evening. Now, that’s the catch I was training her for. In return, I will settle for a vote of thanks at her wedding.
Sadly, we are two peas in a pod. I friend-launch my insignificant others to invite more brains to support my delusion but it ends up becoming a reality check about my bad taste in men. Not that it stops me from sharing fresh material. I literally write columns about them.
Views are personal.
This article is part of a series of columns on modern dating in India—the good, the bad and the cuddly.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)