There’s a lot of ‘we are at the talking stage’ on dating apps. And it involves an awful amount of texting—the favourite cousin of torture. Your hands get tired and your mind is numb. Especially if you’re simultaneously talking to several right-swaps.
Forget love, boredom is making us get off the apps. But such is the lure of that initial rush period, that we (not me) get back on them in less than two weeks, ready to tell five different guys “I have two siblings.”
Five years ago, I loved the talking stage of the post-truth dating drill. I enjoyed getting to know people and believed in men more. But now, with a raging god complex, I can’t tolerate getting to know another travel enthusiast’s “crazy adventure tale”. I am not interested in anyone’s favourite colour, and I am comfortably unhealed to not care about the “my-work-is-so-hectic” rant. My talking stages in 2024 have been as bland as boiled eggs. After having one too many, you lose your appetite.
The home chefs and dejected poets all act vulnerable and share long paragraphs about their traumas—and wordy good morning and good night texts—during the honeymoon phase. Later, you run out of yups, cools, and damns to send in an attempt to not seem rude. Before the whole thing fizzles out, the less-interested party stops texting and just starts lazily heart-ing messages on WhatsApp. And even the funniest cat reel can’t revive a failed talking stage. If you keep texting relentlessly, congratulations, you have officially entered a situationship.
Let’s not blame everything on Gen Z because my millennial database isn’t too thrilled about the material in dating app-sourced conversations either. It doesn’t matter if it happens in the bedroom or at a fancy cafe. I’m surprised rock-heads haven’t realised yet that they can chill about Pink Floyd sometimes. Explore in private; don’t try to own an analysis you copied off the internet.
Honestly, whoever named this phase ‘talking’ is itching to get more bad rap for this generation’s nomenclature.
And then there are the rules of the talking stage. When the conversations are flowing as you desire, you still have to be careful about not replying too fast. Double texts are frowned upon and love bombing is made effortless with the ease of words. Calibrate, calculate, and conquer.
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Playing Presley
A Delhi-based 25-year-old journalist’s romantic talkathon with a guy ended on a high note—he claimed to be in love with her within 15 days. He’s not heartbroken; just busy trying to sell the same lie in all his other simultaneous talking stages. He sings Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” for all his dates. What else can he do if his idea of conversation consists solely of throwing one bad pickup line after another? The journalist would ask, “Isn’t the current F1 season record-breaking?” He would respond, “You’re record-breaking.”
The old-school intense courting doesn’t fly in the modern talking stage. And not everyone is entertained by mixed signals. While we can consult Instagram tarot readers to know your true intentions, we won’t waste time blocking when you give us the first ick. Patience wears thin in this trial period of pre-pre-dating.
One 20-year-old college-going girl saved herself from becoming a man’s project—he treated their month-long talking stage as a fitness counselling session. “Wake up on time, join a gym, why are you spending all day sitting at home?” Once she sent him a picture of a doughnut she was eating and he started lecturing about the number of calories in her snack. To ease his jealousy, she replied with the emoji version of the fried pastry, “Here, you also have.” Even that, he called unhealthy. He has the personality of a treadmill—exhaustingly useless.
I wonder how Naina didn’t get over Bunny for eight years when she spent only a week getting to know him in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013). But then all female characters written by Ayan Mukherjee are fangirls of losers. I believe the banned Nigerian TikToker Saida Boj more than them; she was real enough to ask for $500K to bear with a 24-hour talking stage.
Ratan Priya is a copy editor at ThePrint’s Opinion and Ground Reports desk. Views are personal.
Note: This aticle is part a series of columns on modern dating in India – the good, the bad and the cuddly.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)