Dubai: Why this romance novelist is bringing a singles' meetup concept to the city

Bestselling author Ravinder Singh, who brings his single mixer concept to Dubai this week, on navigating love and romance online and offline

Anamika Chatterjee

Published: Mon 2 Dec 2024, 6:00 PM

Last updated: Mon 2 Dec 2024, 6:02 PM

It was a personal tragedy that led Ravinder Singh to write. He was all of 26 when he lost his then girlfriend to a car accident. The catharsis came in the form of his debut novel I Too Had a Love Story. “I guess I was so much in love that I wanted to immortalise her through my writing,” he says. “Even then I had not thought that I would continue to be an author, but I received so much love from my readers who wanted more out of me.”

It’s been a decade and a half that Ravinder has been penning love stories, many of which have been bestsellers. But his most prominent contribution to the world of romance might just be Let’s Socialize, a singles meet-up forum that allows like-minded individuals to come together, have a conversation and take that back to the digital world rather than the other way around. Ravinder is all set to host the Dubai chapter of the event on December 7 at Yara Cafe, Palm Strip Mall, Jumeirah.

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The idea for Let’s Socialize took root back in the pandemic when the world had begun to live in silos. “I think I felt lonelier now because everyone has shut their doors on each other. I could see people around me craving love and warmth. It also left many people depressed and many singles began to adopt pets,” says Ravinder. Combined with the fact that a societal restructuring has meant there are more single people around (“because breakups and divorces are more acceptable now, plus people are also getting married at a later age”), Ravinder thought it would be a good idea to get people to meet in the real world. What about dating apps, you ask. “I happen to go on a date and realise that the person I was chatting with is different from the display picture she’s put up. Or I meet this person I have been chatting with for a very long time only to realise that her real persona is very different from the one I encountered online. People look perfect in the digital world, but in real life, I don’t see them as my match.” And then there is an issue of fake profiles, which makes online courtship an even more challenging. In such a scenario, a singles meet-up offers people a genuine opportunity to exchange notes, especially in a city like Dubai where so many young people come to live and world.

Technology was meant to make our lives easier, but when it comes to the matters of the heart, it has turned us semi-robotic. Each swipe of a dating app cements the belief that you have options. “I think women are underwhelmed by the quality of men and men are overwhelmed by the quantity of women. So, it’s not solving the problem. In that sense, it makes sense to hark back to the 90s when people would meet each other in person first before committing. That made me think of the usefulness of the singles meet-up idea.”

Ravinder has already hosted such meet-ups in Toronto, London and Dubai, apart from different cities in India. “I think I have been able to do this because of the faith women have on me. And that has to do with the romance novels I have written in the past decade and a half.”

Ravinder’s attempt at forging partnerships comes at a time when societies all over the world are re-evaluating what relationships could look like. A faster pace of life, combined with women wanting to thrive at work, means that different forms of togetherness need to be discovered. Many have, in fact, also embraced a single life as an inevitable choice. But does anything prepare you for the loneliness that comes with a single life? While some cannot live without the space that it affords them, for the rest, it is not a conscious choice. “I see people talk about singlehood as being a heroic way to live. There is a good chance they did not want this. Deep down, they want a relationship but because they fear the world will pity them, they end up putting a brave front. Very few people have found happiness in singlehood,” says Ravinder. But to many, love can feel like navigating a maze because they want more things from life. “People say love is complicated, but it is actually simple. But yes, lucky are those couples who are in love as well as in a relationship with each other. Many times, we fall out of love but continue to stay in the relationship.”

And then there is that other kind of loss — death — that Ravinder himself experienced when he lost his girlfriend. Do you ever really recover from something like this? “I know people will love it if I were to say you never recover, but the fact of the matter is grief is as personal an affair as love. And we all have different mechanisms to grieve. People talk about different stages of grief, but the most difficult part is to accept. Healing can only begin once you accept something has happened. Acceptance leads you to the path of recovery,” says Ravinder. He says any death or loss leaves a deep void, which cannot be filled by someone else immediately. Only when you have healed can you be in a new relationship, he says. “We are sad because we go to sleep with a sense of void and we wake up with a sense of void. After the untimely demise of my first girlfriend, I gave myself the goal of writing my first book. It kept me going. When you put your mind to what your heart is saying, the process of recovery begins. My goal was to write the book, but someone else could have another goal — it could even be as simple as setting up a new Instagram account and taking it to a whole new level. That’s a healthy way of filling that void. Do something you have always wanted to do. If you have hated Excel sheets, don’t take up a task where you have to work on them.”

Are Gen-Z relatively more pragmatic in the matters of the heart? Ravinder doesn’t think so. In fact, he goes to the extent of saying that we often tend to invent a new language and coin new words even when the experience is familiar. “Every new generation does things differently. They have different expectations and experience heartbreak differently. What has changed is that we have new words like situationship or backgrounding. What these words do is that they explain actions and reactions that existed even two decades ago,” says Ravinder. According to him, what has really changed is the fact that the Gen-Z is seeking more clarity. “What they are saying is this — let’s be clear on whether we are in it or not. Personally, I see a lot of good in that. Fundamentally, love remains the same. The need to find companionship, the need to find love, expecting to be loved in return, these are fundamental needs. We may invent as many terms as possible, but I don’t think Gen Z is dealing with relationships vastly differently than millennials.”

While, for now, Let’s Socialize is aiming to capture the attention of the South Asian community, Ravinder aims to diversify in days to come. That may have something to do with the fact that the mindset of the Indian diaspora itself is so different in different parts of the world. He cites the example of the London meet-up which comprised first as well as second generations of Indians. “The second generation of Indians had this thick accent. They wanted to date white people and generally wanted to be accepted as an international community. They were, I observed, largely cold towards first generation of Indians. So, you see, culture becomes an important term of engagement for people even when they want to find a companion.” Wasn’t love meant to transcend it, though?

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