Personagraph

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

A man, a lady and the Indian attitude

The last time I wrote on mobile based apps being a new form of social media, little did I know that I was going to take it a step beyond my experimentation phase and possibly adopt it as a patron. A part of the evaluation process was to try and gauge if the latent need for social interaction was something very personal to me or was there anyone else under the some with similar interests. (yeah that’s where I draw the Star Trek analogy). This meant I had to get some positive responses and some level of interactions before I could get an understanding of what are people looking for on these apps.  Not to mention, it also gave me an insight into how the social fabric of the country was changing and what could possibly be the next stage.

One thing is for sure; tinder, two, badoo, woo, or zoosk- it is easier to change and upgrade applications; you cannot change the way people behave or their attitudes. Yes- most of the new and updated apps have a decent level security perimeter to get rid of obvious leaching and stalking. But even today, the initial thought that you can live a pseudo life on the internet with not even a hint of your own real self is still prevalent. Even with parallel verifications over email and login via Facebook accounts, there is still no dearth of fakes who can circumvent this. After all, it doesn’t take much to create a fake profile on a social media platform.

From the friends I made, I gather a collective feeling that the idea of dating is still something we Indians just cannot fathom. Somehow, friends as a relation between members of the opposite gender comes too low down in priority on a list of possible associations. So the idea of ‘Fun’ is still connected with sex rather than shared interest or activities and just hanging out. Now though some talks did make me a prince amongst the frogs, but it was also painting a picture that people are unable to rise above their ingrained mentality of what you do with your online life. It was not uncommon of people blatantly getting on to just casual sex or a life beyond the limitations of marriage. From my perspective, the profiles online were mostly unsure of what they were doing there or what they seek in life. Not to mention, there were a few escort and more than services hunting for clients.  

On an overall, there were also some very plain assumptions that were being made about people; much on lines of what we hear people talk in defense for improper conduct towards a gender and possible actions. Like if a person was in their 30’s and single; separated etc. it does have some perceived notions which in ways define the character value of the person. We sometimes forget that a person single beyond their 30’s may have had some priorities above just being in a committed relation or simply the fact that you don’t meet the right people at the right hour- but we have a compartment for them. A person who has legally separated is at times a scum lower than even someone who has had multiple partners with no strings attached or any real level of committed relations. I’m not sure what is a bigger flaw; the failure in one relation or a something else from a social perspective that builds the divide.


I believe we as Indians have come leaps and bounds in terms of updating our technologies and lifestyles to match up to the rest of the so called developed world. I guess what now remains is overcoming our shortfalls of the limbic brain instincts to evolve to a more evolved attitude. 

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