Ours is a wild, wild world where even the weirdest of combinations can sometimes work out. We eat jalebi with poha, throw rap raves in churches and are usually open to experimentation that bring together opposing elements. It may not be #ThoughtExperimentThursday yet, but we still thought we’d cross the wires and Fyre up the idea: Why the hell hasn’t Netflix, a platform almost always associated with sex, been turned into a dating site yet?
Picture this: Your single ass is spending Saturday night alone, again. You brood and browse through your phone, swiping across apps, people and conversations before you ultimately decide to fuck it and settle for a date night with your Netflix account. But what if you could take your binge-watching sessions to the next base? What if your Netflix watchlist could automatically match you with other potential singles in your area who follow your couch potato patterns, watch the same shit you do, and could literally come over and chill? Netflix’s recommended watches algorithm is usually pretty on point with its suggestions, so what’s stopping it from doing the same to spruce up our love lives?
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Considering we anyway spend an average of 10 hours per week watching Netflix, just think of the endless possibilities that would open up if it could double up as a dating app. Maybe we’d finally find someone who still sparks joy (among other things) in us. Maybe we’d form bonds over binge-watching as inseparable as Bunty and his Chattri (umbrella). Maybe we’d find someone who commits to us like Felix and Rafa commit to their booming business.
Of course, we may even run into some Joe Goldbergs out there, but stranger things happen on dating sites every day and it isn’t the end of the f**king world. Even the quickie Kaushals of the country would keep on coming. And we’re not horsing around.
Since the content we consume is what moulds our opinions, ideas and attitudes, it is a key factor in defining who we are and how we think. So, we suggest that dating apps and social media take a seat as Netflix serves up this value-added service to all its single members. Janhvi Kapoor recently said on a Koffee With Karan episode that she’d rather use Zomato as a dating app, but why eat out when you can spoon and fork within the confines of your bedroom, preferably with blaring dialogues as a background score?
We’re probably blowing you away harder than Sex Education ever could with this concept, but let’s backtrack a bit. The inkling that Netflix could be a dating app first showed up around 2015 with Netfling, a dating app slated to bring you your personalised Noah Centineo. But, it didn’t work out and we moved on to making moves through an app that literally invited people to ‘Netflix and Chill’ in a manner as uselessly similar to Facebook’s poke feature. And when even this failed to capture our attention for longer than a few episodes, we were given the Black Mirror inspired Juliet, which gave couples an expiration date on their dating lives.
But whether you’re looking for all the boys you could love before they fuck you over or some Kukoo ka jaadoo, we think Netflix caters to all swipes, sizes and audiences and has max potential to grow into a network that brings people together for more than just binge-watching. Because nothing is more sacred than this dating game.
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