How dating apps made sex easy to get but love hard to find

"Once upon a time in a far away kingdom lived a beautiful princess. One day when she was out on a stroll in the woods, she met a handsome prince. The prince fell in love with the princess and they lived happily ever after." While this picture perfect story might be limited to the fairy tales, but not so long ago things in real life used to be as simple (if not more).

People used to meet at weddings and parties, chat a little to get to know each other over coffee meetings and date each other to ultimately walk down the aisle. Life was simple before technology stepped up its ante and ruined everything by its ease of availability.

Yes, we have the world full of options available today. Yes, we don't need a pundit or a talking parrot to tell us when will we meet our soulmate. Yes, life has become a wonderful adventure thanks to the plethora of information available on the Internet.

But in the matters of heart what's really important-- options or the choice?

Call me old school, call me a buzzkill, but I still believe that when it comes to love and romance, old school is the best way to go. Stealing smiles in the hallways of your college (or your workplace), sharing a meal, late night conversations about dreams and aspirations, random 'I love You' messages, all of these might sound a bit too cheesy to some, but isn't that what we all are looking for? Someone to love? Someone to share our lives with?

Dating apps like Tinder, Happn, and Frivil have given us the luxury and liberty to meet people based on our likes and dislikes. While this might be comforting at a level, there is a downside to it as well.

People have stopped investing their time and energies in their relationships because they know that their next relation is just a click away.

They change relationships like they change clothes. There's always a thought, that if their present relationship doesn't work out, there's always a next. As a result, people have stopped sharing their life moments with their friends and partners, people have stopped opening up to others, people have stopped being themselves and loneliness has crept it.

These dating apps, on one hand, have empowered us, but on the other hand, they have created the world full of fake smiles, un-send text messages, and insecurities, leaving behind a sea of sadness that no one knows how to deal with.

We all wear masks that protect us from the pain inflicted by the ones we love. But dating apps today have turned this temporary state into a state of permanent hibernation, wherein it takes a tsunami of emotionally charged events to jolt us out of our limbo. It's true that as humans it's our natural response to run away from any event that might hurt us both physically and emotionally.

But if we take a deeper look at it, isn't this emotional hibernation doing more damage than good?

Everyone has a different mechanism to deal with the pain and it's ok to shut down at times. But it's not ok to give up and it's definitely not ok to live alone.

Take a risk and keep trying. Tinder or no, it's your life and you have to make it Happn!

Why Indians have no right to react to Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel's 'poor India' statement

Snapchat is news again and this time for all the wrong reasons. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s alleged statement expressing his disinterest in expanding the reach of the app in the ‘poor countries like India and Spain’ has caused a furore in India’s digital space that is hard to miss. From hashtags like #UninstallSnapchat and #boycottSnapchat to a vast majority of people uninstalling the popular photo-sharing app, the situation seems to be getting worse for the company. Even though Snapchat has pinned the blame on its ‘disgruntled employee’ Anthony Pompliano calling the statement quoting Spiegel ‘ridiculous’, things don’t seem to be moving in the right direction for Snapchat. Indians are angry and the evidence can be seen everywhere including Twitter, Facebook and even in the reviews section on the Google Play Store.

However, Indians have no right to react this way and reasons for it are many.

To begin with, ours is a country where the citizens are fighting to get the ‘Other Backward Class’ (OBC) status. From Jat agitation in Haryana to the Patidar protest in Gujarat and Jat stir in Rajasthan, past couple of years have witnessed record number of communities fighting to get the minority status. Burning vehicles, blocking water supplies and attacking the innocent countrymen is how these so called minorities have forced the state governments into caving into their demands. Are Patidars or the Jats really a minority in their respective states? No. Do they really deserve special treatment (with an exception of the financially weak families)? No.

Next, while the citizens are quoting the example of a few rich and affluent families like the Ambanis and the Birlas to ‘prove’ that India is not a poor country, it is worth mentioning that 30 percent of India’s total population is still below the poverty line. According to a 2016 World Bank report, India has the largest number of people living under the international standard of $1.90 (Rs 122 approx) a day, which is the highest in the world. How many times have you conveniently ignored the people who sleep on the sidewalks? How many times in a day do you encounter children and elderly people begging for food? How many times have you encountered a disheveled person in tattered rags on road who seems to have no clue of what’s going around? Still think India is rich?

Last but not the least, Indians are known for their temperament. If only it had a base in this case. For those of you who are familiar with the app know that Snapchat doesn’t support a ‘Lite’ mode (on the one that works swiftly even with slow network connections). The app consumes a decent amount of data and requires a steady network connection to work. A country, which is still struggling with its data connectivity issues and is transcending from 3G to 4G, a stable network connection is difficult to find if not rare. If the company feels that India is not a target market for it yet, it has a sound basis for it i.e. the fluctuating network connection, which is a must for any Internet-based app to work.

In case you forgot, Spiegel also mentioned Spain as a ‘poor nation’, but do you see Spaniards losing their cool? No.

It’s high time that Indians get their act together and give out a unified impression instead of maintain dual standards on basically everything!