By Ila Ananya
If you’ve ever considered joining a dating website, you’ve probably worried about privacy. You’ve probably felt uncertain, hesitant even; you’ve worried that you wouldn’t know who was on the other side (or if they weren’t real).
Priyanka Singh is the founder of a new match-making website, Wonderful Things Happen, launched in February this year. Wonderful Things Happen isn’t your average dating website – it is exclusively for Indian lesbian and bisexual women around the world. “For Indian women who love women,” says its home-page; its bright colours and photographs diverting your attention from their logo-a black ‘W’ with a bright red heart.
“I believe that everyone has equal right to love whoever they want, and the state should keep out of it. So when I learned that homosexuality has become a punishable offense, I wanted to do something about it. Talking to a friend, I learned how hard it is for a single gay woman to find a relationship. This becomes harder if she is still in the closet and is not active in the LGBTQ community. I intrinsically believe that meeting your soul mate is the single most important incident that changes life for better. I have been married for approximately six years now to an amazing man and those years have been the happiest of my life,” says Priyanka.
On the website, a pink circle leads to the ‘Lounge’. One needs to sign in to view this space, open for conversations between lesbian and bisexual women and their families to share advice and experiences. Unlike other websites, Wonderful Things Happen promises here to be more personal, finding you a match after declaring you a “serious candidate.” The website also has a blog, where advice and stories are shared.
Finding similarities between the words used in heterosexual dating websites and Wonderful Things Happen isn’t particularly difficult. The only obvious difference is that Wonderful Things Happen chooses to call itself a ‘match-making’ website, and not a ‘dating’ website.
As Priyanka Singh says, “The difference is in our approach – with us, everything is very personal. Dating sites that suggest matches do so based on a general algorithm built on generic questions like hobbies, age, height, etc. However, when it comes to relationships, these questions, although important, are not necessarily critical or deal breakers. In order for a relationship to be successful, one needs to be matched on core values (the negotiable and the non-negotiable). We spend a significant amount of time with each client trying to understand their needs. One doesn’t get this experience on a dating website, where matches are being done by bots.”
It’s a way of dealing with the problem of uncertainty; you’d assume that a process so personal could not, hopefully, leave any space for pretence. The issue of trust has another layer altogether in the case of lesbian or bisexual women, a trust that is easier to create when it comes from within the community.
Amrita, a software developer and graphic designer, is one of the people hoping to design another such website, Sapphic Traffic, an idea that has come from within the community in Bangalore. “They (Wonderful Things Happen) seem to have hit all the points we had thought of, especially the match-making,” she laughs. Funnily enough, when I spoke to Antra Khurana, a researcher the first thing she said was, “Umm, I don’t understand the need for a match-maker; I’d rather approach a friend from within the community”. As she mentioned later, perhaps the lounge should’ve been left open – “To give sceptical users a chance to come closer, to interact.”
Ask Amrita few more questions, and her disagreement with the Wonderful Things Happen becomes more apparent. Wonderful Things Happen caters to those looking for ‘serious relationships’; “Although we understand that the casual hook ups are prevalent, we do not encourage it. Our main objective is to serve women who are looking for a healthy, fulfilling, intimate and meaningful relationship,” says the website. “There are some women who are just looking to meet someone. These are options that should be given,” Amrita argues.
Wonderful Things Happen does lean slightly on the notion of freedom, and hence as an extension, on the notion of coming out. Amrita points out that “Coming out often comes from a place of privilege. I find that someone hoping to come out is best helped through conversation face to face and from within the community.” Ask Priyanka if there are still those approaching them who keep their relationship secret and how they deal with such a situation, and she says, “Yes – we ask this question at the onset of our engagement. We understand every unique situation and adapt our approach accordingly.”
The other services the website provides are speed dating events and mixers in India. “A speed dating event is where we bring 12-14 women together on short dates. Mixers are a special event where we work with one specific client, and hold a mixer for her. In this kind of mixer, we will bring 4-6 women (who can be non-members) that we think are the best fit for our client. The events are hosted in an extremely private setting and only the people who qualify for it are invited,” says Priyanka.
And if you’re wondering about the cute, happy name, Priyanka says, “So when I was searching for a name, by accident, I stumbled upon a quote on Pinterest that said, ‘It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen,’ and I instantly knew that this was the name I wanted to keep. You could say it was serendipity.”
Ila Ananya is an intern at The Ladies Finger and a student at St. Joseph’s College of Arts & Sciences, Bangalore.