A slow-burn romance is something of an anomaly in the land of Hinge—or, for that matter, Gurugram. But I have recently discovered that the Vatika City Business Park bench holds an enormous amount of tension. Two people sat on it, touching knees, arms brushing. Electricity ran from one person’s goosebumps to the other’s. Yet nobody moved. The sky didn’t fall. They went home blushing, looking forward to the next date.
What happens when they meet next is something I am dying to know. It is a real will-they or won’t-they, the kind of plot line that could run for 15 seasons and more. The audience will want to pull their hair out waiting for them to kiss. These characters will sit dangerously close on bar stools and steal glances. They will hold hands and say nothing. They will hire a cycle rickshaw together and smile like fools. And yes, they won’t sit across from each other at a table. They will sit on the same side, putting another seat to an unfair amount of work—the weight of two lovers and their utmost restraint.
If you believe the nose-scratching philosopher Zizek (who is also my favourite meme), this kind of thing is impossible to get from the apps. The one-night-stand crowd aside, couples who click on first dates try to dump their entire lives’ trauma on each other. Just to bond. Connect. Get attached. The first question one match asks another is “What are you looking for?” State your intentions and start acting accordingly. The thing about going slow, or “with the flow”, is that it can enter the deadlock of a situationship—can’t leave him, can’t be with him. It happens all the time. And so, social media thinkers and therapists theorise on about “how slow is sometimes too slow”. “Is it a slow burn or a dead end,” a dating coach asks her audience.
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Delaying the inevitable
In Sex In the City (1998-2004), when Charlotte showed restraint with a date, she found out in the end that she was just delaying disappointment. There is really no way to know. A common woman enjoying hair-raising flirting and the intimacy of holding someone’s pinky finger is basically playing with fire. But to not play with fire now and then is to have become cynical—or worse, bitter.
The heat generated between two people sitting inches apart can be very telling. If they are both quiet, there is even more information to be gathered. This is what happens in movie theatres. For someone like me, cinema is a church you go to with a man to find out whether you worship the same god. He doesn’t, can’t follow a plot and asks too many questions. Then his god is probably Cocomelon. If he sits quietly for the whole stretch, he comes out of the theatre a more attractive man. Another movie-worshipper I know loves the shenanigan of having to cross the distance created by the armrests, leaning in to whisper something silly to each other. She also observes the breathing and chewing patterns of her dates. Ultimately, we have to find easy company to look at a screen together. They can’t be too noisy. They can’t smell too bad. Too much perfume also gives headaches.
Dating a Cinderella is another great way to achieve a slow burn. I don’t mean the shunned step-daughter who comes out to have fun in the night wearing a mask, then runs away at midnight. I am talking about the adults with a curfew who have to reach home by 10 pm. Sharp. The people lingering at the metro stations, checking the time and pretending they are not. Those who have to leave just when the distance on the bench becomes much shorter. Just when the drunken oversharing starts to get interesting. The clock starts ticking. Twenty minutes, then suddenly there are five minutes left. Every second counts. There is no post-date location you can go together; the Cinderella has to get home and eat their mom’s bhindi. Way to keep a fire burning. Who doesn’t want to take it slow with a good boy with a curfew? It’s hard not to, in my personal experience. He keeps enough distance, leaves room for waiting, wanting and winning.
You see, there are many big emotions associated with an instant connection. An over-thinker loses their mind if they feel the spark too soon. They need a friend first, a crush, a quiet companion and then the whirl-winding love story. It takes time to know someone. Much longer to feel safe around them. Some of the modern daters are demisexual, too. They can’t even think about the post-date football in the bedroom without having a deep emotional connection with their choice of a player. It’s a necessity often misjudged as a preference. Slow is the only way it works.
In my case, slow is a choice—or, more accurately, the happy accident of meeting someone with better self-control than I have. Unlike a demi, I am biding my time till the great combustion. The moment when the bench won’t be able to take it. There will be fireworks, you mark my words. In the meantime, I am feeling his eyes on me. The face eggs, chico, they never lie.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)