Siya (name changed on request) sits across from me at a café in Bangalore, nervously scrolling through her phone before finally setting it down. At 27, she represents what many call the new India: MBA from a top college, working at a multinational, financially independent, living away from her hometown in Pune.
Yet she’s here because something feels fundamentally wrong—waves of anxiety she can’t articulate, a restlessness in relationships that keeps her awake at night, and a growing sense of disconnect between what she thought ‘modern life’ should feel like and what it actually feels like.
“My college friends and I, we thought we were being progressive,” she tells me. “We downloaded Bumble, went on dates, kept things casual. Everyone said this was what empowered women do. That we were breaking free from our parents’ generation.” She pauses. “But nobody told us about… this.”
Siya’s (name changed on request) experience isn’t isolated. Across metropolitan India, a generation caught between traditional values and Western ideals is grappling with psychological consequences that neither camp prepared them for. This isn’t about sanskaar v/s modernity. This is about mental health, neuroscience, and data that tells a story India’s urban youth wasn’t quite prepared to hear.
The WhatsApp Forward Nobody Sent
The narrative that reached India’s metros through American sitcoms, Bollywood’s evolved storytelling, and dating apps’ marketing has been seductive: sexual freedom equals personal liberation. Apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge positioned themselves not just as ways to meet people but as tools of empowerment, particularly for women breaking free from arranged marriage expectations. By 2023, India had become the 3rd largest market for dating apps globally, with over 20 million users.
But here’s where Silicon Valley marketing diverges sharply from research reality. A landmark study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, examining over 12,000 participants, found that individuals with higher numbers of sexual partners reported increased rates of depression and anxiety. The research, conducted by Sandhya Ramrakha and colleagues at the University of Otago, tracked participants from adolescence into adulthood and controlled for numerous variables including socioeconomic status and family background.
The findings were stark. Women with 10 or more sexual partners showed significantly elevated rates of substance abuse and mood disorders compared to those with fewer partners. For men, the pattern held as well, though slightly less pronounced. These weren’t conservative researchers pushing an agenda—they were epidemiologists looking at population health data and finding patterns that contradicted the prevailing cultural narrative being imported into India.
What Happens in the Brain (That Nobody Discusses in Coffee Shop Conversations)
To understand why casual intimate encounters might affect mental health, we need to discuss oxytocin—what neuroscientists call the bonding hormone. During physical intimacy, particularly during orgasm, oxytocin floods the brain. This isn’t ancient Sanskrit wisdom or grandmother’s advice—it’s hardcore neurochemistry.
Research from Emory University demonstrated that oxytocin release during sexual activity activates the brain’s reward circuitry, creating neural pathways that associate intimacy with specific individuals.
Here’s the problem: this bonding mechanism doesn’t differentiate between a committed relationship and a casual encounter from Tinder. Every intimate experience creates neural associations, and with each successive partner, the brain forms and then breaks these connections. Dr. Joe McIlhaney and Dr. Freda McKissic Bush, in their work examining the neuroscience of sexual bonding, describe this as similar to repeatedly applying and removing adhesive tape—each time, less sticks.
A study in Psychological Science tracked relationship satisfaction among adults with varying sexual histories. Those who had only been intimate with their current partner reported higher relationship satisfaction and commitment levels than those with multiple previous partners. The researchers attributed this to “pair bonding dilution”—the neurological reality that repeated bonding and breaking of intimate connections may diminish the brain’s capacity for deep attachment over time.
This isn’t about sanskaar or family values. It’s about biology. Your brain doesn’t care whether you live in Mumbai or Manhattan—it’s trying to protect you by creating bonds, and modern dating culture asks you to override that protective mechanism repeatedly.
The Anxiety in the Instagram Story
Retrospective anxiety—worry about one’s sexual past—has emerged as a genuine clinical phenomenon I’m seeing more frequently in my practice, particularly among women in their late 20s from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. A study in the Journal of Sex Research found that 64% of women who had engaged in frequent casual sexual encounters reported some level of regret or anxiety about their sexual history, even years later.
In the Indian context, this anxiety takes on additional layers. There’s the obvious one—the fear of judgment from family and community. But there’s also something deeper: comparison anxiety, disclosure anxiety when meeting potential life partners (whether through apps or family introductions), and what clinicians are beginning to call “relational anxiety”—a pervasive worry about one’s ability to maintain lasting intimate bonds.
Manish (name changed on request), a 29-year-old consultant from Delhi, described it to me: “I thought I was being modern and independent. But now when my parents are asking about settling down, or when I meet someone nice, I feel this… weight. Like I’m carrying something that makes me less worthy of the kind of relationship I actually want.”
Dr. Zhana Vrangalova at New York University conducted extensive research on casual sex and wellbeing. Her findings were revealing: while some individuals with high autonomy and secure attachment styles experienced casual encounters without negative effects, those with anxiety, low self-esteem, or insecure attachment patterns showed measurable declines in mental health following casual sexual experiences.
The problem?
Dating app culture doesn’t come with a personality screening telling you whether you’re in the resilient minority or the vulnerable majority.
The ‘Self-Esteem Paradox’ Nobody Posts About
One of the most compelling datasets comes from research examining self-esteem trajectories. A longitudinal study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health followed over 6,500 teenagers into adulthood, measuring self-esteem at multiple intervals. Young folks who engaged in casual sexual activity showed declining self-esteem over time, while those in committed relationships or those who abstained showed stable or increasing self-esteem.
The mechanism appears to be what psychologists call “self-objectification”—the internalization of being viewed primarily as a sexual object rather than a whole person. Repeated casual encounters can reinforce this perspective, gradually eroding the sense of intrinsic worth that healthy self-esteem requires.
Men aren’t immune either. Research published in Social Psychology Quarterly found that while men face different social pressures around sexual activity, those with patterns of frequent casual sex reported lower life satisfaction and higher rates of loneliness compared to men in committed relationships. Rohan (name changed on request), a 35-year-old banker from Mumbai, put it bluntly: “Everyone celebrated when I was dating multiple women. But inside, I felt empty. Like I was performing masculinity rather than building anything real.”
The Comparison Culture in the Age of Instagram Dating
Dating apps haven’t just changed how Indians meet—they’ve fundamentally altered how we perceive human value. The interface itself—trains users to view potential partners as commodities. A study from the University of North Texas found that Tinder users reported lower self-esteem and higher body image concerns than non-users, regardless of how frequently they used the app.
In India, this combines toxically with existing pressures around appearance, skin color, and social status. When everyone has access to seemingly unlimited options, the paradox of choice kicks in. Barry Schwartz’s research on decision-making shows that an abundance of choices often leads to decreased satisfaction with any single choice. Applied to dating in Delhi or Mumbai, this means even when people find partners, there’s a nagging sense that someone “better” might be just a swipe away.
This isn’t fulfillment—it’s a recipe for chronic dissatisfaction, amplified by a culture already obsessed with comparison through social media.
The Gender Dimension in the Indian Context
The research consistently shows gender differences in psychological responses to casual sexual activity. A meta-analysis examining 59 studies found that women experience more negative emotional responses to casual sex than men, including higher rates of regret, reduced self-esteem, and increased symptoms of depression.
In India, this isn’t just biology—it’s compounded by persistent double standards. A man with multiple partners is still often called “experienced” while a woman faces harsher judgment. This creates an internal civil war: pursuing culturally imported notions of “sexual freedom” while managing deep-seated societal conditioning and genuine family concerns.
But Indian men don’t escape unscathed. Research from the American Psychological Association found that men who strongly pursued casual sex often did so to meet perceived masculine norms rather than genuine desire, leading to what researchers called “incongruent sexual behavior”—acting in ways that didn’t align with actual values or desires. This incongruence correlated with increased anxiety and depression.
Ayesha (name changed on request), a 28-year-old software engineer from Hyderabad, shared: “I was doing what I thought successful, modern girls do. But it felt like betraying something in myself. When I finally met someone I wanted to be serious with, I realized I’d trained myself for casual, not commitment.”
The Marriage Question Nobody Wants to Answer
Perhaps the most concerning long-term finding comes from research on marital stability. Analysis from the National Marriage Project (NMP) found that individuals who had multiple premarital partners showed higher divorce rates than those with fewer partners. The correlation held even when controlling for age, education, religion, and other demographic factors.
For Indians navigating between love marriages, arranged marriages, and arranged-cum-love marriages, this data becomes particularly relevant. The mechanism isn’t entirely clear, but researchers propose several hypotheses: reduced ability to commit deeply after multiple bonding and breaking cycles, higher comparison of current partners against past experiences, and diminished novelty in committed relationships after extensive previous experience.
This isn’t to validate regressive attitudes about “purity” or justify invasive questions from potential in-laws. It’s simply presenting data that shows human psychology has certain patterns regardless of culture.
Moving Forward: Neither Fully West, Nor Fully East
None of this research suggests that everyone who engages in casual dating will suffer mental health consequences. Human psychology is complex, resilient, and individual. But the data does suggest that the cultural narrative imported from the West—that casual sexual activity is universally benign or empowering—is incomplete at best and potentially harmful at worst, especially when transplanted into the Indian context without acknowledgment of our different social realities.
India’s urban youth deserve complete information. They deserve to know that while sexual freedom is indeed a right, it comes with psychological dimensions that aren’t discussed in dating app marketing campaigns, Bollywood films, or Western feminism discourse. They deserve to understand that their brains are wired for attachment, that repeated intimate connections without commitment can create neurological wear, and that what feels like liberation in the moment might contribute to anxiety, depression, or relationship difficulties years later.
This isn’t about returning to repressive attitudes or validating intrusive family questioning. It’s about honesty. It’s about recognizing that maybe there was wisdom—not in the patriarchal control, but in the understanding that intimacy and emotional wellbeing are deeply connected.
Siya (name changed on request), my client from the Bangalore café, eventually found her way to greater peace. It wasn’t about erasing her past or drowning in shame. It was about understanding that her anxiety had roots in real experiences, in neurological realities her brain was processing. It was about recognizing that the culture sold her an incomplete narrative—both the traditional one that denied her autonomy, and the modern one that omitted crucial information about mental health.
“I wish there had been a middle path,” she said recently. “Not the regressive aunty lecture about ‘log kya kahenge’, but also not the American self-help book telling me that any boundary is oppression. Just honest information about what this might do to my mind and heart.”
The research increasingly suggests she’s onto something. In our eagerness to shed genuinely oppressive traditions, we may have thrown out some fundamental truths about human psychology, attachment, and mental health. The question now is whether India’s young generation can forge a third way—one that honors genuine autonomy and equality while also respecting what neuroscience and psychology are telling us about wellbeing.
Perhaps that’s the real progressiveness—not blindly adopting Western paradigms or clinging to regressive traditions, but using data, self-awareness, and genuine wisdom to chart a path that actually serves our mental health and happiness.
Dr. Jaimine Vaishnav is a faculty of geopolitics and world economy and other liberal arts subjects, a researcher with publications in SCI and ABDC journals, and an author of 6 books specializing in informal economies, mass media, and street entrepreneurship. With over a decade of experience as an academic and options trader, he is keen on bridging the grassroots business practices with global economic thought. His work emphasizes resilience, innovation, and human action in everyday human life. He can be contacted on jaiminism@hotmail.co.in for further communication.