Does Dating Affect Your Mental Health?

A partner you get along with and who understands you brings tranquility of mind whereas an incompatible partner can drain you, explains Ravi Mittal, founder and CEO of the dating app QuackQuack.

Whenever we talk about health, the first image that comes to our mind is of physical health -- being in good shape, having a nutritious diet, exercising and sleeping between 6-8 hours each day.

It is time for us to broaden this definition and also include mental health in it.

It is also imperative that we talk about factors that impact our mental health.

Career, work life, family and environment and of course, our love life.

Dating app QuackQuack recently conducted a survey to better understand the mental health of our young dating crowd.

As many as 50,000 users from India including men and women aged between 18 and 30 years participated in the survey.

A few interesting findings:

1. A good partner can escort you to a healthy mental life

Almost 40% of male users in the age group of 28-38 from Tier-2 cities said that they are happy with their current partner. As for female users in the same age group, the number stood at 47%.

A compatible partner not only makes you understand yourself better, but also enrich your life by adding to it their wisdom and kindness.

When you get along well with someone, you are often able to communicate and convey words without speaking. However, an incompatible partner or someone you lack communication with can also equally deteriorate your peace of mind.

Not knowing where you stand in your relationship or having silly fights can put you at unease mentally.

To know whether you are compatible with your partner or not, ask yourself if you feel at peace with them mentally, emotionally and even physically.

2. Women and the impact of dating apps in their personal life

When it comes to dating, women do not have it easy.

Societal pressure, fear of judgement and peer pressure, make it difficult for women to date and go out with whoever they want to.

Women users were of the opinion that approaching guys is not easy in Indian society. That is where dating apps come to the rescue.

Fifty three per cent female users who participated in the survey said they felt better once they started using the app.

Once they could chat and talk to men, it was less challenging for them to go forward with their dating life.

A happy dating life translated as a happy emotional life with peace of mind.

For women in metropolitan cities in the age group of 18-30, dating apps did not make much of a difference in their personal life while in Tier-3 cities, the percentage rose to 56%.

3. Men on dating apps have it tougher?

For men, the competition is tough, particularly on dating apps.

Not only are there more men with the imbalanced male to female ratio but they are less likely to get likes and matches than women.

As many as 31% of men in the age group of 25 to 40 from Tier-2 and 3 cities said they felt disheartened after using dating apps for reasons like -- not getting likes or matches, not receiving replies to their messages and also a lack of compatibility.

For men in metropolitan cities, the world of dating is less harsh -- 19% of men in the same age group were concerned about not getting matches and also felt less ignored when it came to replies.

They admitted that women did not feel restricted while dating them and that the dating scene was completely different from small towns and cities.

Overall, the participants and respondents of this survey emphasised that their mental health played a crucial role in their dating life and vice versa.

A partner you get along with and who understands you brings tranquility of mind whereas an incompatible partner can drain you.

Similarly, women had a positive view of their personal life after using dating apps as they had an outlet to approach and talk to men.

Men, on the other hand, said they found it difficult to gather likes and matches as compared to their female counterparts.