Single in the Bay
Chronicles of a South Indian woman
Silicon Valley is the only place on Earth where for any unpleasant tech encounter, the love gods unabashedly remind you of your many unsuccessful dates.
Don’t believe me? After having met a decent amount of people on the dating apps this past year, my fleeting rendezvous should serve as conclusive proof.
Booking an Uber ride and you see the prices surging — Ah! you know whose team is responsible for this.
AirPods not switching seamlessly between your laptop and iPhone — While you curse yourself, you remember sitting across the man who coyly shared how he worked on it.
First world problems I know.
Dating is hard. Dating in the tech scene is harder.
Dating in tech as an Indian is well … another ballgame altogether.
I will not speak for my culturally distant Indian-American cousins who navigate tides and current of their own. Kudos to my Chechis and Chetans. But this is the story of people like me — the starry eyed newcomers, half-jokingly living out of three large suitcases lest we get kicked out of the country this next second.
All your life culturally when you are hard-wired to have an arranged marriage, finding this new found freedom of online dating can be liberating and terrifying, often at once. With the mainstream coverage of Seema aunty and her elaborate affairs in Indian Matchmaking, the world is now starting to uncover the beat-up alleyways of finding your partner the good old fashioned way.
So why don’t I follow my pre-determined fate?
When I turned 23, my parents promptly started looking for eligible bachelors much to my dismay. I was in a foreign country charting a new life. Relationships and marriage were alien concepts to me but as time passed I felt myself unconsciously fancying companionship. Hesitant at first, I slowly participated in these discussions, equal parts curious and apathetic of the outcome. My heart had to be protected at all costs.
If only my parents realized that the world is not as simple as it used to be.
It’s been an enlightening exercise where I’ve been shown a mirror, coming face to face uncovering biases of my own. An eye opening experience, where I’ve learnt a ton. Predominately that education does not define a person’s nature. To add to it, centuries of harmful patriarchal roots remained to be broken. The drama was too much to make sense of.
When my poor parents started urging me to find someone on my own, it was fascinating to dwell on how the tables had turned. And so began my dating app adventures. When I was not writing product documentation for work, I switched gears to write app bios.
I came to realize two core truths.
I’m not perfect.
I had no idea what I was looking for.
It baffled me, in matters of the heart, why we looked to our brain for an answer.
Navigating the various ships between friendship, relationship and now the ever popular situation-ship, I made mistakes — taking things too lightly or too seriously.
Despite being a strong independent women, perhaps I too yearned for a hallmark prince charming to come sweep me off my feet. Why the disntiction — Why can’t we have both?
Every time I log into social media, some new friend is getting married. This person is either younger or older or heaven forbid the same age as me. It is safe to say that it sure feels like everyone I know is getting married. I will echo what my contemporaries are wondering but are ashamed to ask, when will our time come.
On a routine video call with my parents, my mind was restless, swirling in itself -a never ending storm of emotions, unsure of what to do next. As I was gnawing over these question with my guardian of secrets — my mother, the person whom I least excepted me to offer me support stepped into the video frame to give me my answer. The man who I knew was the most restless soul when it came to my marriage, looked into my eye and lovingly said:
You will find your person when it’s due time. This is a big decision so naturally it can’t be rushed. For some it’s easy and for others not so much. But at the end everything works out — you have to have faith. Use this time to find yourself, define what you are looking for and have fun. Marriage is sacred and being with your life partner is a great joy. But so is this time in your life where the world is at your feet — one day you will look back and cherish the time you spent as a single person so make the best of it!
I knew I loved my dad but that was the day I realized I truly respected him.
And so comes another year, another attempt to find the wonders of the worlds as I step back into the murky waters looking for my paradise, purging myself off my newly uncovered biases and faults. The adventure continues…
