Latest / Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas / Online Dating: How to swipe right for love ft. Surbhi Bagga

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Online Dating: How to swipe right for love ft. Surbhi Bagga · Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas

• 0:04
  Do your research. By research, I mean stoking for good old googling.
• 0:11
  Yeah, good old googling, look them up on LinkedIn. Okay, I
• 0:14
  do believe that some stocking is healthy, you know, because you're going to
• 0:18
  be putting yourself in a situation where your physical safety can be compromised. Why
• 0:31
  go out and meet people when you can swipe through a sea of potential partners
• 0:35
  from the comfort of your own couch. Today we'll talk to a guest who
• 0:40
  says that online apps don't deserve that bad rap. She's even going to tell
• 0:44
  us why a little ghosting shouldn't scare anyone off, and why she prefers to
• 0:50
  look for love online instead of in person. Hi, I'm Evelyn Charmer and
• 0:59
  your list to Love Matters, a podcast about relationship issues that matter to you
• 1:03
  and me. So I've heard from people who want to ban all dating apps,
• 1:10
  but today our guest has exactly the opposite point of view. She thinks
• 1:15
  online apps are great for finding love. In fact, she met her current
• 1:19
  partner on not one, but two different dating apps. So, whether you're
• 1:23
  already looking for love on Tinder, Bumble or okay Cupid, or you're considering
• 1:27
  signing up this is an episode especially for you. But first let's meet our
• 1:34
  guest. Surbi Baga is a stand up comic, TV writer and host of
• 1:38
  the Overthink Tank podcast. Surbie, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:44
  Thank you so much, Evellin. That was a lovely welcome. I feel
• 1:48
  like this is the podcast that I should have been guested on, you know,
• 1:53
  like love matters. It just feels so right awesome. Yeah, I'm
• 1:57
  really excited to share my tricks fantastic. While we're so so glad to have
• 2:04
  you today on the show, tell us straight up, what is the best
• 2:07
  thing about online dating? I believe that dating apps are a boon for introverts
• 2:14
  like me, specifically because otherwise, if no dating apps exist, then your
• 2:20
  next option is to walk up to people in a bar and strike a conversation,
• 2:24
  you know, and hope that the other person is single also, and
• 2:29
  it's also equally you know, out in the market. Well, I wouldn't
• 2:34
  think that stand up comic is an introvert, but I'm sure when it comes
• 2:38
  to dating, we all have different aspects to ourselves. What do you think
• 2:43
  is the drawback? Though? When it comes to online dating? The catch
• 2:47
  is that it can make you feel like you're just a profile out in the
• 2:52
  etho. Yeah, but also your partner is one swipe away, you know,
• 2:57
  one message away. Yeah, because I have her from quite a few
• 3:00
  people who are just done with online dating, who have been wronged, as
• 3:07
  they say online. But then I guess we can be wronged in real life
• 3:10
  too. I mean, do you want to meet someone in a bar or
• 3:14
  through a friend or online? And I guess online is the very much twenty
• 3:19
  first century way to meet someone. So I have tried out every approach that
• 3:24
  people talk about, right as you've just mentioned the approach of asking a friend
• 3:30
  to set you up with someone. That's how I'm at my husband. So
• 3:36
  oh, okay, there you go. You see that's beautiful, But it
• 3:40
  can end up two ways. There's always the fear of meeting someone and not
• 3:46
  liking them that person as much, And then how do you tell your friend
• 3:52
  that, oh, by the way, the guy you set me up with
• 3:54
  was a bore or you just I wouldn't. I would want and enter this
• 4:00
  friendship as well, thanks for ruining my evening. So that's a con,
• 4:06
  and one else is on that list. I feel like there are multiple cons
• 4:12
  depending on how you approach dating apps like for me, I personally feel like
• 4:18
  a lot of people complain that dating apps don't feel as organic as you know,
• 4:23
  meeting someone at a bar or meeting someone at a mutual friend's birthday party.
• 4:28
  But to me, I feel like anything is as organic as you make
• 4:31
  it to be. So just the fact that dating apps make it a little
• 4:36
  easier for you to have the first meeting or have the first dialogue without feeling
• 4:46
  like the ground beneath your feet is shaking. It makes it easy for you
• 4:49
  to talk to people and then what you make of it, Like, once
• 4:56
  you meet the person in real life, then what the section that you have
• 5:00
  is still going to be organic. It's still sort of like a blind date,
• 5:04
  isn't it, Because you've spoken to the person and you've texted with the
• 5:09
  person, that it's still can be pretty dangerous. Once you meet them in
• 5:12
  real life, they will not be that person that you hope them to be.
• 5:16
  They will be themselves and hopefully that's what you will love about them.
• 5:21
  But it could also go the other way that you're like, you get this
• 5:25
  reality check. Yeah, that is also a gamble that you take, right.
• 5:30
  That's just regardless of what app you use, If you meet them because
• 5:33
  your friend made you meet them. That's the gamble that you're taking when you're
• 5:38
  looking for love. In my opinion, things can go wrong anywhere in the
• 5:44
  world. I mean, we've all seen Thinness Swindler. I bet there's someone
• 5:47
  out there is planning to be a bumble humble, but like unhinged unhinge,
• 5:55
  I do believe that you can make dating apps work for you, but you
• 5:59
  can also be more frivolous about love. It's about what you want. So
• 6:04
  I remember using dating apps as a way to casually meet people with no intention
• 6:11
  of, you know, love, no intentional sort of getting into a relationship.
• 6:15
  So as long as you are clear about what you want and you're not
• 6:19
  here to waste anybody else's time or your own time, I think that is
• 6:26
  what sort of brings the maturity. Even in a dating app. You can
• 6:30
  be mature about you know what you're seeking, and there's going to be a
• 6:34
  lot of people who are going to hurt you unintentionally or intentionally. But if
• 6:40
  you don't know what you want and you're just browsing the catalog, well that's
• 6:45
  also I think something that you can be you can be open about. You
• 6:49
  can just be like, I have never been on a dating app, so
• 6:54
  I'm just exploring my options to seeing what's out there. And yeah, just
• 7:00
  knowing even if you don't know what you want, knowing that you don't know
• 7:03
  what you want is good enough. It's a good start, That's true.
• 7:08
  You do look at it as a ratio game, right where every twenty dates
• 7:13
  you go to, one of the person might be the person that you know
• 7:18
  you have a connection with. So basically you have to have fun with it.
• 7:23
  You have to enjoy dating apps as something that you just can't take too
• 7:29
  serious. I guess there's a lot of fun to be had on dating apps.
• 7:32
  What's one of the most hilarious experiences that you had. I went on
• 7:38
  a date with this guy who seemed amazing on text, you know, seemed
• 7:43
  like a fun person, seemed like someone I could have a drink with and
• 7:46
  then see where it goes. And then he showed up in his shots and
• 7:54
  his bathroom slippers almost to the bar literally five minutes into the date. I
• 8:00
  was like, okay, I can only down this one beer and then I
• 8:05
  have to be out. So the date went well in his own right.
• 8:09
  He was being I think open about his job but in my opinion, I
• 8:15
  think I've never heard someone talk about crypto for twenty five minutes at length.
• 8:20
  Oh mind, you could talk to me about crypto for like three hours.
• 8:22
  I still would not get it. I was a typical crypto boy and honestly
• 8:28
  just read the room. Check in with your date, see if they have
• 8:33
  anything to share, instead of just going on and on about your job.
• 8:37
  So that's something I have. I mean, luckily for me, I don't
• 8:43
  have to go on any more dates because I have found someone. Right,
• 8:46
  let's talk about that. How did you meet your partner? Okay, my
• 8:50
  cun partner? He was on a dating app. I met him on Bumbled
• 8:54
  first and we swiped like we matched with each other, and we started texting
• 9:00
  for a week and out of nowhere, obviously, the second wave of the
• 9:05
  pandemic hit us in the face. It was just a lot. So I
• 9:11
  personally just felt very like, how could I be on a dating app looking
• 9:15
  for love when the world around me is looking for hospital beds and you know
• 9:20
  this crisis everywhere. I just felt that dating apps were really frivolous, and
• 9:26
  for me, in that moment, I immediately uninstalled the dating app IP was
• 9:33
  on. I just I know that it made me sort of like a ghoster
• 9:37
  because I didn't text anybody. I just didn't have the energy of, like,
• 9:43
  you know, talking to people because on dating apps, first of all,
• 9:46
  you know you have to really the talking stage is the hardest one because
• 9:50
  that's when you're really opening up about what you do and la la la la
• 9:54
  la, what I like doing, where do I hang, what do I
• 9:56
  do in my free time? And if you're not in the right mental space,
• 10:01
  then you can get very sort of depressing to be talking about all that
• 10:05
  stuff. And on the other hand of the dating app, you're feeling like
• 10:09
  shit and you're feeling like none of this is going to matter right, like,
• 10:13
  especially when there's so much other health anxiety on your mind. So I
• 10:18
  completely ghosted my partner the first time I started talking to him. But like,
• 10:24
  exactly a year later, I've taken some therapy. That's always good.
• 10:30
  Yeah, that's always good. Comes in handy. So I was back on
• 10:33
  another dating app, swiping away, feeling myself feeling like, okay, cool,
• 10:37
  the world's back on, let me give this a shot again. Boom,
• 10:43
  I find the person I was talking to exactly one year ago, and
• 10:48
  immediately I swamped back at him, and I was like, hey, the
• 10:50
  sequel, the sequels is better than the first part. So I said less
• 10:58
  immediately catch up. I was like, you know, the weekends right here,
• 11:03
  meet me for a coffee. Coffee is always a safe bet because by
• 11:05
  the time the coffee cools, I know if this has any potential. So
• 11:13
  so I went for a coffee date. My I think when I look back
• 11:16
  and I think about this date, I think I really have to give it
• 11:22
  to myself too, for meeting this person immediately, because sometimes there's a lot
• 11:26
  that you can't figured about a person through just texting. Yeah, so I
• 11:31
  think meeting even though it might seem a little nerve wrecking to meet someone immediately,
• 11:35
  I was in the opinion that, you know, let's see, let's
• 11:39
  see why this goes. I always have an out. I always have,
• 11:45
  like someone texting me if I need to get a early out, or I
• 11:50
  can just be honest and I can just tell them, hey, you know,
• 11:52
  great meeting you, but I don't think this is going anywhere and have
• 11:56
  to be back home. So just it's like a polite way of telling them
• 12:01
  that the snow working. So I think me I met him immediately we kind
• 12:09
  of started talking and that one coffee day, let do dinner dates and more
• 12:15
  dinner dates, and then we went dancing. The thing about our first date,
• 12:20
  which which my partner loves reminding me, is that he asked me what
• 12:24
  are you looking for on the dating app? And my answer was, stead
• 12:28
  of looking for love, it's so cute you guys. I feel like I
• 12:33
  feel even though you said, you know, a con sometimes is that it
• 12:39
  doesn't feel so organic when you meet someone via a dating app. But to
• 12:43
  be honest, I feel like what you're telling me sounds like a very organic
• 12:46
  progression of your relationship. And you did meet online. You did transition it
• 12:52
  into real life quickly, which I think is may be key, you know,
• 12:58
  at least for some people, people to take it offline as soon as
• 13:03
  possible and not become a online relationship because then you're really living in this dream
• 13:11
  world of who the other person is, but rather really take it quickly into
• 13:16
  real life. Like you said, a coffee date is just so casual,
• 13:22
  like you can have coffey with anyone, and it's daytime. It's a safe
• 13:26
  place, a safe environment. Yeah, just give it a shot, meet
• 13:31
  the person, see if you bube or not. And I remember my partner
• 13:37
  still tells me about how he was taken aback, like a little bit about
• 13:41
  how intensity I said I'm looking for love and I meant it. I wasn't
• 13:46
  joking about because a lot of people who are on dating apps, they have
• 13:50
  all kinds of answers when you ask them why you hear, what's your purpose?
• 13:54
  And some people might just say, oh, I'm looking for you know,
• 13:58
  friends, or I'm looking to just hang out for new people, and
• 14:03
  not a lot of people say that I'm looking for love. But I'd reached
• 14:07
  that point in my personal life and I was like, Okay, I know
• 14:11
  what I want, Then why can't I just say it out loud? You
• 14:15
  won't make me a smaller person, right, Yeah, Just I feel like
• 14:18
  some of us feel kind of ashamed of the fact that we need love,
• 14:22
  which is so silly, Like why do we look down on the fact that
• 14:28
  you need to feel loved just like everybody else? And oh why does it
• 14:35
  give out like desperate energy to say that I am looking for love? And
• 14:39
  I feel like a lot of times when you say what you want, you
• 14:43
  actually then receive that. It's really funny because sometimes you just have to be
• 14:46
  really honest and say what your heart desires, and the other person then knows
• 14:52
  what to give to you. That's right, that's so true. Where like
• 14:56
  all our lives have been too old to sort of you know, how do
• 14:58
  you true interest and keep them to yourself? Whatever you really want? Trust,
• 15:05
  don't say it out loud. But the feeling of freedom that you get
• 15:11
  by saying exactly what you want, that is something else, you know.
• 15:16
  And I think I could have been in so many good relationships or just friendships,
• 15:22
  like mutually agreed upon friendships are better than one side of love fairs because
• 15:26
  I was in a relationship thinking that okay, I want love, but I
• 15:33
  wouldn't say it out loud, and the other person has no idea that I
• 15:35
  want love. The other person's like, okay, we're casually hooking up and
• 15:41
  I'm treating him like my boyfriend, but he's treating me like is one of
• 15:45
  his casual You know, I know what you mean. Yeah, it's not
• 15:50
  about communication, And actually, you know, it requires bravery to say what
• 15:54
  your heart desires because you put your self out there at holnerably and you can
• 16:00
  be hurt by someone else not giving that to you. And that hurts when
• 16:06
  they knew exactly what you wanted and they didn't give it to you. But
• 16:10
  it also shows you who the other person is and whether they are the right
• 16:15
  person to have this place in your life or not. Yeah. Well,
• 16:21
  on the podcast, we always have an infutbox related to the topic, So
• 16:26
  why don't we quickly have a listen into today's infut box. Let's go for
• 16:30
  this. According to survey conducted by you gov in twenty twenty one, around
• 16:40
  forty four percent of Indians have used a dating app at some point in their
• 16:44
  lives, but only twenty six percent of people on dating apps are women,
• 16:48
  says Business Insider India. Research also shows that online dating in India can be
• 16:52
  particularly challenging for women. They often face harassment from male users. As a
• 16:59
  result, many dating apps have implemented safety features to try to protect their users.
• 17:06
  M that's interesting. What do you think about that? I mean,
• 17:08
  it's definitely not shocking, but the number the twenty Like I was, I
• 17:15
  always knew that there's less women on dating apps, but it's way less.
• 17:21
  It's twenty six percent. It's kind of shocking. Honestly, maybe they aren't
• 17:26
  trusting the men on dating apps as much, which makes sense. I mean,
• 17:30
  men haven't really shown a good report cards. They're like the biggest threat
• 17:37
  to your safety. Yeah, well online and offline, I suppose. So
• 17:42
  I guess it is a bit scary to not really know who the other person
• 17:48
  is. I also think that we need to figure out a middle point where
• 17:53
  women can feel like they can go to a date and not be you know,
• 18:00
  stuck there when they clearly don't feel like it's looking for them. So
• 18:03
  do you have any tips for our listeners? What are the top three questions
• 18:08
  that you can ask someone on a dating app so you kind of get an
• 18:11
  idea who they are before you go on a date. I would say,
• 18:17
  first of all, a set of three questions is not enough to know them,
• 18:21
  so do your research. By research, I mean stoking, good old
• 18:26
  googling. Yeah, good old googling, loot them up on LinkedIn. Okay,
• 18:32
  I do believe that some stocking is healthy, you know, because you're
• 18:34
  going to be putting yourself in a situation where your physical safety can be compromised.
• 18:41
  So a basic check here and they're totally fine. So what else to
• 18:45
  look out for? Maybe having like really old photos ofph you and still using
• 18:49
  them on the dating app that's been pretty weird. Yeah, okay, what
• 18:56
  do you think is like, Okay, hey, that's a red flag.
• 18:59
  Do not continue talking to this person. There's a point in the conversation where
• 19:03
  you can start like spewing hate about your ex. And that's when I'm like
• 19:07
  a little turned off. I'm like, all right, I get that you
• 19:11
  are in a relationship, but don't shut down your ex on your first date
• 19:15
  with somebody else. That feels a little weird because I feel like, Okay,
• 19:19
  he's going to lead the date and on the next date it's going to
• 19:22
  talk smack about me. That's right. But how do I protect myself my
• 19:26
  heart to not get broken? I guess is the question that a lot of
• 19:30
  people would ask. I think if you if you really want to do dating
• 19:34
  apps, it's a good time for you to, you know, get accumulated
• 19:38
  with all the different words that there are related to the dating app world.
• 19:44
  I mean, you know, we've all heard about ghosting, but this breadcrumbing,
• 19:48
  this benching. Benching is when somebody is, you know, talking to
• 19:52
  you, but they're honestly just keeping you on the bench. So some of
• 19:57
  the people that you find on dating app might be doing that to you and
• 20:03
  knowing that this is a thing that happens can keep you at least a little
• 20:07
  safe and like a little aware. Yeah, I mean there's always a bad
• 20:11
  apple right on any app. You can meet like a douchebag on sing Smoke
• 20:17
  or a douchebag on any app or in any bar. Well, I guess
• 20:22
  to sum this up, if you're looking for whatever you're looking for online,
• 20:29
  be honest about it. Be transparent in your conversations with people that you match
• 20:34
  up with, so everybody knows what they're in for if they were to go
• 20:40
  on a date with you. Be kind to each other, don't hurt each
• 20:42
  other, Be kind to yourself, be kind to yourself. Yeah, that's
• 20:48
  very good. When is the time to finally delete the app? When are
• 20:52
  you done with the dating app? So in my case, I deleted the
• 20:57
  dating app. I think it's the two month mark when I was kind of
• 21:02
  I'm seeing my partner and I was like, you know, I'm not actively
• 21:06
  using the dating apps because I'm very much interested in pursuing this right now.
• 21:11
  So, in fact, he was the first one to delete his dating app,
• 21:15
  and the kind of person that he is, he wrote everybody a message
• 21:21
  like a little text for all of his matches saying that, Hello, thank
• 21:26
  you for talking with me. I have found someone I'm interested in and I'm
• 21:30
  pursuing this relationship. I hope you have a good life. Before he uninstalled
• 21:36
  the app, which is which is basically good etiquette, right, Like nobody
• 21:40
  has thought this, but you know, accidentally uninstalling an app and then making
• 21:47
  the other person feel like you're being ghosted is something that happens as well.
• 21:51
  So just taking a little extra time to make the other person across the phone
• 21:57
  feel like you're all so human and so am I And here's a little message
• 22:03
  to give you closure, right, or a change a bio, you know,
• 22:08
  or a change of bio, or just if you don't want to be
• 22:12
  on a dating app, just just message everybody who you recently matched with,
• 22:18
  all the people your bread crumbing, and all the people that you're benching at
• 22:22
  the moment, just give them a shout out to send them a little letter
• 22:27
  to eat everybody's house, like hello. But I think, yeah, good
• 22:33
  dating app etiquette is something that we aren't like really familiar with. So I
• 22:37
  think if that is made more normal than everybody would behave like a like a
• 22:44
  gentleman slash woman on dating apps, like, it's not your playground for you
• 22:48
  to hurt someone, it's you have to be a kind person and to yourself
• 22:56
  and to the other person. Kindness is what will get you to your parler
• 23:00
  or you know, to your whoever, just a good friend. That's a
• 23:04
  really good book to write online dating Etiquette. I wonder if that's already there.
• 23:11
  Awesome, Well, thank you so much, Sluby. I feel like
• 23:15
  what I have understood from our conversation is that dating is very much linked to
• 23:22
  personal growth. You may start out somewhere like you said, the sorby I
• 23:29
  would have met a few years ago, it is very different from the one
• 23:32
  who you are now. And I'm sure that your dating life has led to
• 23:37
  a lot of personal growth and self discovery. And I guess everyone that you
• 23:42
  meet online is just another contribution to your personal growth, which is beautiful.
• 23:49
  And I think that that is also what really defines like the coming generations.
• 23:56
  I've heard that a lot from gen Z that the life to go into relationships
• 24:00
  for you know, not forever, but for a season where they get to
• 24:06
  know each other and kind of help each other grow and you know, then
• 24:08
  move on and I feel like taking the pressure off is good, especially when
• 24:15
  it comes to online dating, to just you know, not go in waste
• 24:18
  too high of expectations. You may make a friend, you may make a
• 24:22
  partner, or you know, you may not like them, which is also
• 24:26
  fine, that's so beautifully said. You know, you may want a partner,
• 24:32
  you may want you may make them a friend, or you may just
• 24:34
  realize something that you have been secretly wanting your entire life and you just know
• 24:41
  industing it, such as go in with an open mind and make sure you're
• 24:47
  not there to hurt anybody, and when your intentions are right, then you
• 24:49
  will attract the right people. I think. Yeah, awesome to have you
• 24:55
  on the show today. Thank you so much, Thanks so much, Evelyn,
• 25:00
  Thank you. I had a great time chatting with you. You've been
• 25:06
  listening to Love Matters, a podcast about relationship topics that matter to you and
• 25:11
  from Indian Express and DW, Germany's international broadcaster. If you think there's something
• 25:18
  that we need to talk about, or there's a topic that is important to
• 25:22
  you and you think we need to cover it, please write to Love Matters
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  at DW dot com and don't forget to share our podcast with your Friends.
• 25:33
  I'm Evelyn Charma and I think lave matters.