Speaking love in a world of swipes

Hookup slang is hollowing out the language of desire and eroding the emotional depth in dating and sex

- Divya Naik

Compliments have become a form of currency and are no longer purely about praise and appreciation.

(PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ISTOCKPHOTO)

e's hot." "She's bangable." "Would smash." These terms echo through dating app messages, social media captions, and even therapy rooms.

What was once whispered in hushed tones has now entered mainstream conversation. Bios, reels and casual texts are loaded with this shorthand which is succinct, performative, and intensely visual. But behind this hyper-visual shorthand of attraction lies a quiet crisis: the erosion of emotional vocabulary.

Bengaluru-based psychotherapist and sex therapist Divisha Singh points out that terms such as these are rooted in objectification. “They reduce a person to their desirability in a snapshot, rather than acknowledging their humanity or depth,” she says.

In an environment where dating apps and social media reward brevity, this shift is hardly surprising. Each swipe is a split-second judgement on someone's looks. Singh says we are engaging with people as consumables, rather than as multifaceted individuals.

Dr. Minnu Bhonsle, a relationship counsellor based in Mumbai, adds that modern dating has created a market economy of desire: “There's a collective shift from seeing people as whole, emotional beings to assessing their market value in a visual economy.”

Yet this isn’t entirely new. As psychologist Pritha Saha Dutta from Mumbai notes, the tendency to objectify has always existed. What's changed is the visibility and scale. “What used to be whispered in classrooms or behind closed doors is now performed publicly—through Instagram reels, dating bios or group chats. The platform has made the objectification more casual, constant and viral.”