“Competitors are coming in all the time,” shrugs Taru Kapoor, unconcerned. The general manager in India for Tinder (and its parent company Match) has good reason to be unfazed by the explosion of innovative dating apps around the country in the last three years — be it ones like TrulyMadly that’s designed in India, or women-centric, ‘American success story’ ones like Bumble. Because hers has a position in public perception that is difficult to shake off.
But the status just makes Taru’s responsibilities that much more serious.
She’s well aware of the difficulties of online dating. “Women, particularly, tend to get inundated by attention and messages; it gets difficult to sift through.” This inundation has prompted a shift in preference to more select — so to speak — apps in recent times. And the problem is not just of scale, but also of attitude. Which explains recent tweaks like the ‘My move’ setting.
It’s a setting that gives the onus of initiating a conversation to the woman. “We introduced it on iOs about a month ago, it should be available on Android soon,” says Taru. “We realise that it’s a subjective preference: some women may like it if the decision is left to them; some prefer the man to make the first move. So it’s a setting that you can toggle on or off.”
Regardless of what the user decides to do, the important thing here is just being given that choice, explains the GM who had earlier gone on record to say that she “dreams of a National Consent Day” some day.
“I think consent is a core value: not only of Tinder, but it’s also something I personally believe in. I think everyone, but particularly India as a society, needs to understand what consent really means. We have grown up watching popular culture and movies where a guy chases a girl until she says yes. It’s somehow ingrained in us, this idea that ‘no’ might mean ‘yes’... which doesn’t translate into real life.”
Can’t force love
It’s something she feels strongly about, and not just in the context of ‘romantic’ situations. “It’s okay to express your interest in somebody, but any relationship between any two human beings does not work unless both of them are on the same page. If you want to be best friends with somebody and they just want to be your acquaintance, then you can’t force your friendship. If you are in a relationship with someone, and you want to get married and they don’t, you can’t force that either. The idea of consent is something that we haven’t talked about enough, that we don’t understand. People like us — companies — can do one bit about this, but so can the media, educators. The concept is simple enough; it doesn’t have to be a serious conversation.”
An app can take steps to ensure safety too. The key, says Taru, lies in “simple things” like the double opt-in, which is now a given across dating apps, a manifestation of “a very simple idea that you can’t talk to someone unless you like them, and they like you back.” But tweaks like that can only do so much: security issues connected to blind dates remain a societal problem.
One of the ways Tinder is trying to tackle this is through collaborations with online content creators. In India, this attempt has not worked that well. Their most recent tie-up has been with Agents of Ishq for a colourful video called ‘Marzi hai minimum’. It’s a song that tries to drive home the point that consent is a basic requirement regardless of situation, relationship status or the dynamic between the couple. In two months, it’s garnered just a little over 9,000 views.
Despite the voluminous growth of Tinder in the six years since its inception, Taru has no delusions about its place in the bigger picture. “If relationships were a book,” she says, “We would be the first page of the first chapter. It starts there, but the whole story is yet to be written.”