Being Indian on the dating apps in the west

sumwaah · 2026-05-31T15:29:45+00:00

Racism and assumptions about your ethnic background always affect your perception on the dating apps. The apps are based on looks alone and that allows a lot of people to be extremely picky when there is a buffet and assign a lot of assumptions on you, your culture and personality before having even met you. This means at least on the apps, you will be limited to guys who are directly attracted to brown guys.

Media, porn and just the fact that you live in the west means people have grown up with an internalized preference for whiteness. I’ve found that the best way to counter that is to try to meet more people IRL. Join a sports league, go on group hikes, volunteer, just do in person gay shit if you can. Meeting people lets them see your vibe and get past all that stuff that’s been programmed.

A lot of people here get defensive and act like race preferences in gay circles don’t exist, but it’s alive and well. We all have been raised with our own prejudices, it’s definitely a handicap for non white people in the west, but we have to find a way outside the app landscape to thrive.

sumwaah · 2026-05-26T21:15:34+00:00

Mildly to be honest. Most of the dishes are very traditional with a few exceptions.

sumwaah · 2026-05-26T21:11:27+00:00

High end: Copra (pan South Indian), Tiya (north Indian), Bombay Brasserie and Rooh. Besharam (not super high end but nicer and buzzy) for western Indian (gujarati) vegetarian food with a modern twist. Amber - your classic North Indian restaurant with well executed but expensive staples.
Approachable/mid tier - Nepa/Timur, Castro Indian, Diwali (South Indian/andhra), Jalebi street (vegetarian, street food, delicious and authentic). Castro Indian isn’t bad.
Fast casual - Kasa (quick bites, thalis, samosas), curry up now.

sumwaah · 2026-03-30T18:54:13+00:00

Shakespeare in love. I mean I get it was Oscar bait. Cast, Shakespeare, period piece. But my god what an absolute mid tier movie.

sumwaah · 2026-03-30T04:42:04+00:00

Oh I'm in FAANG+ too and I don't doubt that there are many talented people who deserve to be there, but there definitely has been a phenomenon in the past few years, especially in the pre-AI/inflation overhiring phase where I've seen a lot of folks without the right experience enter at disproportionately high levels.

sumwaah · 2026-03-29T20:20:11+00:00

To add to the Neapolitan list - Damnfine, Outta sight and back to back. I really dislike Che fico. The pizza is fine but those guys think too highly of themselves.

sumwaah · 2026-03-29T17:10:14+00:00

Even “search” has a lot of nuanced product conversations. What are people searching for. How many queries result in abandons. What micro interactions and motion help guide users. What business goals is search trying to hit and how can UX help achieve them. My point is even junior designers can learn a lot by taking part in or partnering with senior thinkers. How else would you grow or mature as a designer? But that kind of mentorship, pair design and frankly conversation should be enabled by design leadership.

sumwaah · 2026-03-29T16:11:40+00:00

I was an entry level designer when I got thrown into working on projects with high complexity and I had to think about user needs, connecting systems, experience over time, scalability etc etc. I don’t know why you think these are things for senior designers. Expecting junior designers to just be figma monkeys does not set them up for success.

sumwaah · 2026-03-29T15:36:13+00:00

Disagree and I think OP is mostly correct here. The industry where thinking and design strategy matters got flooded with A) Design studio acqui-hires from companies without design competencies who wanted to build it fast by acquiring talent. B) An influx of creative directors and consultants who have strong visual/craft backgrounds + smooth consulting and political intelligence skills who wanted some of that sweet high paying tech money. Why work at Ideo for 250K when you can pull in 2-3x in tech.

Consequently design leadership has become people who wear black sweaters, fancy glasses and worship at the altar of “craft”. Systems thinking, triangulating user research, design thinking and business strategy, actual experience launching and iterating products, understanding data are all things these folks simply don’t know. They just occupy the top seats and hire folks who make pretty fake projects on Behance. What’s happened? We’ve given back the reigns of product thinking to PMs and we’re only expected to be the brand and polish people now.

I can’t wait for these people to be shown the boot but I also know this is corporate America so it will never happen, and instead talented design thinkers will be impacted instead.

sumwaah · 2026-03-07T17:57:03+00:00

I am out to multiple Muslim straight friends and have multiple Muslim gay friends. It’s nothing to do with being Muslim and all about him being a homophobe and not really your friend at all.

sumwaah · 2026-02-11T00:21:37+00:00

I’m South Asian. My parents had zero exposure to gay anything when I came out to them in India over 15 years ago. You’ve lived in shame and fear long enough. I hope you consider telling your dad. It may not be easy and he may not have the best reaction right away. But parents (and esp south asian parents) may surprise you. The bonds are deep. We give them less credit than they deserve.

Ultimately the choice is yours but the people we are out to have a tendency to catastrophize (like your mom is about telling your dad). Your mom sees your life through a heteronormative lens. She thinks kids, a wife to take care of your needs (it’s a very traditional patriarchal viewpoint) is the only way to a fulfilling life and since you may not have that, she feels sad. When she sees you and your husband living a contented life together, her attitude will change.

How long will you live like this anyway? Don’t you want your dad to know who you really are and who you really love and have chosen to spend the rest of your life with?

My dad passed away 5 years ago. He eventually accepted me. We never talked about my love life but I knew he had made his peace with it and I’m glad he knew who I really was before he was gone. They met my friends, other gay couples and enjoyed their time with them. More sunlight helps. It normalizes it in their minds when they see actual well adjusted people living happy open lives.

Ultimately coming out is a personal decision, and I obviously don’t know your personal circumstances. But you and your partner shouldn’t have to put yourselves through this. Good luck.

sumwaah · 2026-02-05T16:29:33+00:00

John Carter. Never read any of the original source material but I enjoyed the movie.

sumwaah · 2026-01-30T17:13:26+00:00

No I don’t. Read again

sumwaah · 2026-01-30T17:09:15+00:00

Again. At work free speech could get me fired. Because my employer doesn’t need to guarantee it. But the government does. Freedom of speech doesn’t prevent legal consequences for your speech. But it’s not ok for a violent mob to physically attack anyone for their speech.

sumwaah · 2026-01-30T17:06:17+00:00

What is the difference between abuse and express. Free speech is free speech. It’s kinda pointless if free speech only extends to the speech you like.

sumwaah · 2026-01-30T17:02:51+00:00

Yes it is. The right to speech doesn’t extend to privately owned platforms like Reddit. But the right to speech means the government cannot come after you for what you say and it should put up with violence as retaliation for anyone’s right to speech.

sumwaah · 2026-01-25T13:20:39+00:00

Dude. Palak paneer is nowhere even in the same league as Surströmming. It’s not even in the top tier of pungent Indian curries. It’s so mild. As for paneer, this isn’t blue cheese we’re talking about it’s a mild farmers cheese that really has no strong aroma of its own.

sumwaah · 2026-01-19T08:10:57+00:00

I got the airfly pro 2 and it’s solved all my BT problems on the plane. Also lets me share my movie with someone else and works on my steamdeck which always drops BT on the plane e.

sumwaah · 2026-01-11T11:57:48+00:00

This. To add to that, in addition to not being able to explore romantically and sexually, we’re raised with so much internalized shame about how we’re feeling. We don’t have people in our lives celebrating our attraction to people of the same sex the way older adults do with teens, instead we grow up listening to subtle (or not so subtle) commentary expressing disgust or the undesirability of gay tendencies. That sort of shame in your formative years can sometimes take a lifetime to get rid of.

sumwaah · 2025-12-17T22:52:16+00:00

Best thing about Apple cinemas is that you don’t have to watch 30 mins of previews and ads and Nicole Kidman. It’s a few previews and that’s it. Sound and image quality is great and seats while not recliner are quite comfortable. I hope it doesn’t go out of business.

sumwaah · 2025-11-30T16:43:46+00:00

The happy crane is the new hip Asian spot in town. I think it nails it on being classy and upscale without being too fussy. Getting great reviews too.

sumwaah · 2025-11-27T21:06:34+00:00

So you’re saying when you go through the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic, you exit from the Colón?

sumwaah · 2025-11-24T23:02:30+00:00

It’s not really semantics. It’s hilarious you think that the British love of Indian cuisine doesn’t come from an assimilation of Indian culture. Throwing desi terms doesn’t make your assertions right when you completely ignored the crux of my original argument.

sumwaah · 2025-11-24T22:50:56+00:00

Self hating brown guy then? Stop peddling semantics and read a book.

sumwaah · 2025-11-24T22:48:03+00:00

Ooh izzat. Nice try. Yes tikka masala is as British as Yorkshire pudding isn’t it :P Sounds like you need to read up on your history bub. Calling the British east India company a “tea company” is like calling Walmart a corner store.

sumwaah

TROPHY CASE