The road to marriage is broken.

Imagine if you could reach anywhere you wanted to within just a blink of an eye. 

At first, it sounds amazing. You could be in a busy city like Delhi one day, and in a remote village enmeshed between the peaks of the mighty Himalayas the next second.

But think a little more, and you realise that you’ve lost the most important part of that experience- the journey.

Have you watched the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara? 

Well, for those of you who haven’t, it’s about three friends understanding the nuances of their lives and reflecting on their friendship over a road trip.

Imagine if the hypothetical power to travel across space and time in a jiffy were real, the plot of the movie would seem quite ridiculous to say the least.

But it’s happening. Gradually, but we’re moving towards that direction.

The experience of writing letters is being replaced by instant messaging through WhatsApp, and the long train journeys typical of sharing your home-cooked food with strangers are being replaced by quicker flights shrouded in silence.

Sadly, the journey towards a love marriage is no exception to it.

The Sarais en route to marriage. 

When you travel on a highway, the only thing consistent amidst the changing landscape is the milestones. 

When the Grand Trunk Road was reconstructed by Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century, he sprinkled the road with Sarais (rest houses) at equal intervals, which also acted as milestones for the Musafir (traveler).

Much like travelers needed Sarais to rest and reckon their progress, relationships too had their milestones.

The journey from singlehood to marriage was covered by the road of Courtship (the process of wooing the partner), with symbols of love acting as the milestones or Sarais.

When the concept of consent arose in marital matters, Courtship became the central phenomenon on which the fruits of your labour depended. 

If a man desired to marry a woman he liked, he would try to woo her while functioning within the rules and norms of Courtship.

Men would shower women with gifts, serenade them, and write poems and letters- just to know whether their attraction is reciprocated. 

The acceptance of a gift was a milestone on that road, so was agreeing to meet them.

The destination? Marriage.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and that well-defined road to marriage has crumbled. 

The Sarais of love—small, meaningful milestones—have been replaced with shortcuts, detours, and dead-ends.

Multiple entries and exits on the road. 

The process which was streamlined and marked with milestones of success was upended when Dating Apps and Matrimonial apps entered the scenario. 

These apps fragmented stretches of that road and offered multiple entry and exit points instead of a gradual journey.

You can bypass courtship altogether, filter through profiles, or jump straight to marriage through a matrimonial app; or you can linger in an endless cycle of 'talking stages' on dating apps, where deep connection is often elusive.

This breakdown of the road to marriage is leaving many who desire a love marriage quite directionless.

The Courtship distress.

To understand what those people are doing in such a scenario, we asked an open-ended question on Reddit about where they’re looking for love for a love marriage.

When we abstracted the answers received, we came to two conclusions:

1. People have either surrendered to their fate believing that love would find them on its own and are not actively trying, or

2. They’re actively trying to be part of offline communities or clubs to increase their chances of finding someone organically.

Interestingly, the second finding is corroborated by several news reports which found that the youth is actively engaging in running clubs, gyms, and other interest-based communities to find love. [1] [2] [3]

The situation is so bad, that it is now frequently joked that people pursue an MBA to find a partner, not to get a degree.

However, there are problems with both approaches.

For Approach 1, it is too obvious to point out that it’s useless. Surrendering to your fate hoping that love would find you somewhere when your daily life involves a fixed routine of going to the office and one possible outing on weekends isn’t quite rational. 

When it comes to Approach 2, it leads to communities primarily being used for socialising than genuine interest. Not to mention, it spoils the experience of others who get approached by people with romantic advances at platonic spaces for work and hobbies. [1] [2] 

It should be common sense that if a person is attending a hackathon or a reading club, they’re likely there to participate in an event or to read a book, and not to be approached by strangers.

Overall, there is a glaring need to do something about it, lest loneliness pervades society. The priority should be to reconstruct the road to marriage and re-emphasise the journey of Courtship.

For that, we need not abandon technology, but can redesign it to facilitate meaningful relationships. 

Dating apps should not just introduce people, but actively encourage real-world experiences—guiding them through the milestones of courtship rather than leaving them to figure it out alone. 

Whether it's through curated offline meetups or interactive challenges, the goal should be to bring back the beauty of the journey.

After all, it is the journey that creates the experiences, not the destination.