Online dating can be tricky – for all sexes. Putting yourself out onto the interweb, representing yourself as best as you can through a couple of photographs and a tiny paragraph, and then waiting for random strangers to “approve” of you is stressful. But hey, the pursuit of love (or sex) is no easy task, or so claimed Lord Byron.
The spectre of the internet is a double-edged sword – while it is easier to swipe right on someone you like than walking up to them at a coffee shop and introducing yourself, the anonymity of the internet also allows a horrific lack of accountability and often strips people of basic decency. Human beings can be much ruder through the safe distance that screens provide than they might have been in person. Take my male friend, for instance – after mutually agreeing on a time and date for a meeting with a Tinder match, he was ghosted. On the eve of the date, he sent her a confirmation text to check whether the date was on. In response, she unmatched him, and he never heard from her again.
However, being a woman on online dating apps exposes you to specific and targeted online misogyny that far exceeds mere impoliteness. Instagram accounts like @byefelipe and @feminist_tinder (now deactivated) that are based in the US/Australia have been documenting instances of men turning aggressive, abusive and threatening when faced with rejection or disinterest from women on dating apps. I decided to reach out to some Indian women and listen to their experiences of being a woman navigating online dating.
Screen grabs off the Instagram and Twitter pages of @byefelipe and @feminist_tinder, respectively.
Not being a user of online dating apps myself, I tweeted out to women and asked them to share their stories with me. Very quickly, my Direct Messages tab turned into a very dark place. (Please note that all names mentioned here have been changed in the interest of anonymity.)
Doing a story on #misogyny Indian women face on #dating apps like #Tinder, esp after rejecting a guy. Pls DM me if you've faced this? RT!
— Asmita (@asmitaghosh18) November 10, 2016
The commonest behaviour that women reported to finding irksome was persistence. Men would keep sending them messages, even if the women did not reply. If the women left-swiped or unmatched (on Tinder), the men often sought them out on Facebook and messaged them there – even though left-swiping or unmatching is an obvious sign of disinterest.
While the incessant messages border on the annoying, they can quickly turn creepy and end up limiting women’s engagement with public spaces, as in the case of Latika*, who noted that a man from Tinder found her on Facebook and started ‘liking’ all public events that she had clicked ‘interested’ or ‘going to’ on – even though she had not swiped right on his Tinder profile or accepted his friend request on Facebook. This made her so uncomfortable that she did not go to those events in the fear that he might show up there to meet her.
Messages of this sort exist in almost every woman’s ‘Other’ folder on Facebook. Persistence among men is symptomatic of a larger problem of male entitlement.
Persistent messages can soon give way to abusive, misogynistic ones when men are faced with rejection. Priyal* recounted that once, she was not next to her phone for some time, and started receiving abusive messages from two men for swiping right and not replying to them. These messages included words like “pricey”, “didn’t want to swipe right anyway”, “fucking bitch”, and “slut.” Vanessa* wrote in about one man that she had initially had a great conversation with, but later lost interest in when he began to pester her for nude pictures that she did not wish to share. Although she has since deleted the app due to the overall bad experience she faced with online dating, she remembered his retort word for word because of its sheer viciousness. He wrote, “I wouldn’t fuck you with a ten foot pole, you fat feminazi cunt. You look like you have a fishy vagina anyway.” Afreen* reported a similar incident, with a man getting defensive and rude when she did not reply promptly, as she was not interested in him. He responded by telling her how she looked like an “old aunty” and had only swiped right because he had felt sorry for her.
This man later replied saying, ” Bahadur, why no speak?” because the woman in question was Nepalese. Boy, racism sure gets those panties dropping!
This sentiment of men getting defensive and angry upon being rejected runs deep – many women wrote in with similar stories to these. Upon rejection, men react with hostility and an overt misogyny, expressing an unbridled anger at being rebuffed. Their first reaction is to shame the woman, usually on their bodies and sexuality, as these are the only attributes that these men seem to value in women.
However, body-shaming does not only occur after rejection.s-96 30-96 80c0 16 6.5 32.75 17 45 4.75 5.5 10.25 10.75 15.25 16.5 17.75 21.25 32.75 46.25 35.25 74.5h57c2.5-28.25 17.5-53.25 35.25-74.5 5-5.75 10.5-11 15.25-16.5 10.5-12.25 17-29 17-45zM256 144c0 25.75-8.5 48-25.75 67s-40 45.75-42 72.5c7.25 4.25 11.75 12.25 11.75 20.5 0 6-2.25 11.75-6.25 16 4 4.25 6.25 10 6.25 16 0 8.25-4.25 15.75-11.25 20.25 2 3.5 3.25 7.75 3.25 11.75 0 16.25-12.75 24-27.25 24-6.5 14.5-21 24-36.75 24s-30.25-9.5-36.75-24c-14.5 0-27.25-7.75-27.25-24 0-4 1.25-8.25 3.25-11.75-7-4.5-11.25-12-11.25-20.25 0-6 2.25-11.75 6.25-16-4-4.25-6.25-10-6.25-16 0-8.25 4.5-16.25 11.75-20.5-2-26.75-24.75-53.5-42-72.5s-25.75-41.25-25.75-67c0-68 64.75-112 128-112s128 44 128 112z">