Don’t bother asking Gen Z how they met their boyfriends, girlfriends, partners or hanky–panky buddies. It’s no charming meet–cute. You’re just forcing them to name a dating app.
Nobody’s dupatta gets stuck in anybody’s watch. There’s no enemies-to-lovers arc. Not fate, but the algorithm arranges the first encounters.
And so we’re plumbing the depths of our imagination and scripting our own ‘how we met’ stories—meet-cutes. Don’t judge us.
Minimum and believable
The post-Covid drill is random and yet very predictable—a glance, a scroll, one swipe, and match. It’s the least imaginative opening scene of a rom–com, maybe that’s why nobody’s making movies with Bumble and Hinge plots. What a tragedy it is that a generation obsessed with strangers’ personal lives—or “lores”—is stuck with the most unremarkable couple origin stories.
Meet-cutes are delusions sold by Nora Ephrons, Nancy Meyers, Yash Chopras and Imtiaz Alis of the world. As main characters, we all deserve them. We keep threatening to quit all the apps, pretending to look for love the “old-fashioned” way.
Twenty-somethings even have dating bios that say, “Let’s tell everyone we met at your nearest chemist.” Yes, some of us are lying through our teeth and cooking up cute tales out of desperation. A fake bookstore, crowded concert, a Zostel common area—the details have to be minimum and believable.
The last Tinder match who ended up being my boyfriend for half a decade was easily onboard when I told him to memorise the script of our fake meet cute. We met at a friend’s friend’s birthday party and danced all night. It was a watertight story, and nobody goes to such extended circles to verify these things.
My colleague, whose Hinge boyfriend is now on a fiance track, is still workshopping their origin story. She’s looking at something as honest as an autofiction, low-key true but not as bland as the truth.
There’s always the wedding storyline. The set-up is all there—a venue, many strangers, and liquid courage flowing at the open bar—to plant a fabricated meet-cute sub-plot. After all, begani shaadis have seen more Abdullas deewanas than anyone can count.
Also read: Is your relationship private or secret? Gen Z can tell by what you post on the gram
Magic isn’t manufactured
Since IRL meet-cutes are practically out of our reach, we may have to rethink what counts as a magical first introduction. Perhaps, the only way to deal with the frustration of being robbed of a good story is what they call radical acceptance in therapy speak. It happens at unexpected places?
Twitter, Instagram comment threads, Bollywood gossip subreddits, Letterboxd, Amazon review section—love stories are written in the strangest corners of the internet. Then there are dedicated singles who directly land on Jeevansathi.com, doing family planning with the first eligible guy who shows interest.
A 23-year-old law intern hit it off with their now-partner during a satsang Zoom meeting. One bored participant spotted the other and made a DM slide with a topical joke. I know a 27-year-old who met her live-in partner on the ‘Flats and Flatmates’ Facebook group. It’s the great lesbian stereotype but they have embraced it fully.
Not to gloat, but I am not exactly unlucky in the meet-cute department either.
Imagine losing your phone just an hour before the first IRL date, making him think you’ve ghosted, then calling him from an unknown number, asking to be picked up. It’s classic damsel-in-distress, and what a cute origin story. But don’t go throwing your phone away, magic isn’t manufactured like that.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
