Let’s start with the obvious: when Parineeti Chopra casually mentioned that she googled Raghav Chadha after meeting him, the internet reacted as if she had admitted to installing spyware. Height? Age? Marital status?
Suddenly, curiosity became character assassination. But in 2025 India, googling a date isn’t an obsession. Its orientation. You don’t walk into a dark room without switching on the light, and you certainly don’t walk into intimacy without checking who’s on the other side.
The idea that love must be blind sounds poetic until you remember that women live in a country where caution is taught earlier than romance. Googling is not about mistrust. It’s about context, and for women, especially, context can mean safety
Half Of India’s Daters Google
Multiple global surveys show that nearly 50 per cent of people search for a romantic interest online before or immediately after meeting them.
Almost one in three decide not to pursue the connection after what they find: inconsistencies, hidden relationships, aggressive online behaviour, or simply vibes that don’t match the real person. This isn’t niche behaviour anymore. It’s mainstream dating hygiene.
In India, this practice becomes even more pronounced because dating still happens in overlapping social ecosystems, family, workplace, public reputation, caste, politics, and increasingly, screenshots.
Googling is not snooping; it’s stitching together fragments of a person who exists both offline and online. If chemistry happens at breakfast, reality check happens by lunch.
Why This Is Different For Women
Here’s where the conversation needs to grow up. India continues to report hundreds of thousands of crimes against women annually, including harassment, stalking, and assault.
Cybercrime against women, particularly stalking, impersonation, and image-based abuse, has seen a sharp rise in recent years. Dating apps and social media have blurred access, but they have also blurred boundaries.
For many women, googling a date is not curiosity. It’s pre-emptive self-defence. It’s checking whether someone has a history of harassment complaints, aggressive online rants, or questionable behaviour patterns.
Clinical psychologist Anjali Gursahaney has repeatedly pointed out that women are conditioned to scan for danger because they disproportionately bear consequences. When systems do not guarantee safety, it becomes an individual responsibility, unfairly so.
So no, this is not about being “calculative.” It’s about navigating intimacy in a country where one wrong judgment can spiral into real harm.
Also Read: Indians Are Now Getting Fake Dates To Practise Dating Before Doing It For Real
What Psychology Tells Us
Psychology tells us that humans form impressions in seconds. Attraction floods the brain with dopamine and oxytocin, chemicals that reward certainty and emotional acceleration. That’s why someone can feel “right” immediately. That’s also why red flags are often invisible in the beginning.
Googling works as a counterbalance to emotional speed. It doesn’t replace connection, but it slows the illusion of certainty. A profile, a news mention, or a digital footprint can’t tell you how someone loves, but it can tell you how they behave in public, how they argue, or whether their online persona contradicts their offline charm. That gap matters.
The Real Problem Isn’t Googling
What’s truly strange is not that people Google dates, but that society expects women not to. We romanticise risk while refusing to reduce it. Dating platforms advertise safety but outsource it to users.
Families moralise caution instead of demanding accountability. And when something goes wrong, the first question is still, “Did you check properly?”
This culture turns vigilance into a personal burden rather than a collective responsibility. If women are googling more, it’s not because they are anxious; it’s because institutions are slow, platforms are reactive, and justice is exhausting.
Googling someone after a first date doesn’t make love transactional. It makes it informed. In a country where crimes against women remain persistently high, caution is not cynicism; it’s intelligence shaped by lived reality. Romance does not disappear when facts enter the room. It collapses only when truth is hidden.
If we want people, especially women, to stop treating dating like a risk assessment exercise, the answer isn’t shaming curiosity. It’s about building safer platforms, fostering faster accountability, and cultivating a culture that stops punishing women for wanting both connection and security. Until then, the browser tab stays open, not because love is weak, but because the world still is.
Images: Google Images
Sources: The Indian Express, The Economic Times, The Times Of India
Find the blogger: Katyayani Joshi
This post is tagged under: dating culture India, modern relationships, googling your date, women safety India, digital dating norms, first date etiquette, celebrity relationships India, psychology of dating, online safety for women, love and caution, urban Indian dating, relationships and technology, crimes against women, gender and safety, emotional intelligence in relationships, pop culture and society
Disclaimer: We do not hold any right, copyright over any of the images used, these have been taken from Google. In case of credits or removal, the owner may kindly mail us.
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