What Do You Get Out Of Spending On A Date?

You’ve seen the clip by now. Chances are, you’ve also seen the barrage of memes and opinions criticising the clip. By the time of me writing this, 23-year-old Himanshu Jangra has been fired from his job for narrating how, if he spent 370 rupees for biryani on a date, the least he would expect is “compensation” (cough sexual favours cough). You probably did not see the clip where he talks about how he coerced the girl into kissing him, and Pranit More jokes, “12 rupaye vasool ho gaye” (lit. you earned back 12 rupees).

Now critics are mad, of course. Aghast that the room full of people laughed at the “joke”. Wondering how a man as callous as this has had his job without any HR professional ever flagging him. How comedian Pranit More thought it was okay to encourage the joke and post a clip of it, but didn’t waste a second to censor him on the spot when Jangra said that his date wanted to go to a temple together. Religious sentiments are a thing in this country, you know?

What our moral gurus and online philosophers are missing out is that mindsets like that of Himanshu Jangra are so common and so normalised across the world that it did not even strike More that this could cause a controversy. For contrast, take the case of the medical student who openly declared that she and her friends compare how big the genitals of cadavers are, and have a laugh about it. 

This confession, despite the laughs it generated, didn’t see the light of social media scrutiny till much later. But that's the story for a different article.

And before you scroll up, look at my name in the byline, and dismiss this as yet another “all men bad” rhetoric, slow down and give this a read. I wouldn’t be writing this if saying that all men are brutes was my sole point.

I am roughly the same age as Jangra. I’ve spent the last few years switching between different tier 1 cities (including, but not limited, to Delhi, where this show was held). Been on dates in all of them. Most of these were through dating apps, and a handful few being through mutuals who set us up. And heard even more stories from friends about their dating nightmares. 

And people like Jangra have been on dates with almost every girl I know.

Sometimes he is the mutual friend that gets too handsy on you in the car on your way back home (been there, won’t recommend it). Sometimes he is the guy from Hinge who thinks he’s owed a kiss just because he feels the first date went very well (and well here means that you split the bill and entertained every problematic thing he had to say). Sometimes, he is that one guy who seems genuinely great till you tell him that no, you’re saving yourself for marriage, and you won’t as much as make out with him unless you are married. Then you are wasting his time. 

But hey, don’t use that as a prompt on your dating profile, because that attracts a whole different genre of virginity-obsessed creeps. 

But even then, the problem is not that men pay for dates and feel entitled to something. Most men who pay for dates do not feel entitled to sexual favours, and it is important not to collapse the argument into something that simple. I’ve had more failures with men rushing to meet with just three days of texting and then struggling to keep up the conversation in real life than I have experienced men who feel entitled for paying the bill. 

The problem, a friend points out to me, lies somewhere else. This friend (let’s call him Anish) has given up on dating apps for some time now. The women he meets are often through mutuals, or those whom he approaches at run clubs, group activities, or sometimes even at the metro (isn’t that last one inconvenient for the girls, I ask. How else are you supposed to meet people, is his reply. The best he can do is try and make sure that it’s not someone who looks busy/seems to be having a hard time).

Yet, even without dating apps, he admits, his mind is hardwired to treat the situation like there are ten other right swipes waiting for him the second he gets the first ick with a girl. He is careful not to show it, but sure, if the flags keep adding up, they never make it to the second date. 

Safe to say, almost no one in my generation believes in finding love through dating apps anymore. And in increasing numbers, people are disillusioned with the idea of dating itself, even though the romanticisation of romance seems nowhere close to dying.

Like Anish, many of my single friends miss the feeling of hitting it off with a person right at the first meeting. The magical feeling of the vibes matching just right, just as you meet this person.

But at the same time, dating apps create conditions in which every interaction is framed as an investment requiring a return. You invest attention, time, and money. And when the returns do not materialise, the loss feels disproportionate because the platform has trained you to believe that after all the resources that you put in, you will finally get something back.

In many cases, it’s an endless wait and investment to get into a long-term relationship. For many more, it’s the knowledge that even if a transaction did not bring “the person meant for you”, you at least get someone to sleep with. More often than not, the latter outnumbers the former, and boom: a city’s dating scene is termed miserable. Except that it’s almost every city that this is happening to. And every other date that becomes an iteration of talking to a Himanshu Jangra variant.

The only difference is these guys don’t brag about it at a comedy show.