Deepesh poked Ritu. And that is how their love story started. Though not exactly a relationship-matchmaking website, it all began through the marvels of Facebook. Regardless, they made it work out this very way.[break]
Deepesh says the poking was solely based on the “nice photo” he saw of Ritu on Facebook while aimlessly browsing one cold winter day in December 2007. “I saw the photo and I found her very attractive. I saw her profile and poke’d her,” he says. Superpoke probably hadn’t even been discovered then.
Ritu does not remember if her profile was set to “privacy” mode.
It took her a few days to respond. Nonetheless, a “poke back” was sent. After a few rounds of “poke” and “poke back,” Deepesh sent her a FB message: “Thanks for the poke.” Ritu replied to the message: “You like poking. So do I.”
A modern-day love story, both agree. And this was how the 29-year-old clothing designer Reetu met her future husband Deepesh, 32, a reporter with the French newswire AFP.
The first messages are still safe in Ritu’s FB inbox. After a few message aadan-pradaan, the couple switched to MSN Chat. “Who does MSN chat in this day and age?” Deepesh asks. And so he made Ritu switch to GChat. “I did not have a Gmail account before that. He made me open one,” Ritu says.
The two started learning about each other. For Deepesh, a journalist, it was hard to convince Ritu that journalists are not the real evils of the society. She thought that all journalists do is yellow journalism and loathed them. It took him a while and some convincing to change her views of what it meant to be a “Nepali patrakar.”
Thus chatting the first few months revolved around profession, hobbies, interests and dreams, solely on the Internet. Since the first message, Deepesh insisted on meeting for a cup of coffee. Ritu always “had other plans.” He wanted to talk to her over the phone and gave his phone number. She never called him. But they did not stop chatting and Facebooking.
In January, after around a month and much persistence, they met, at Hunan Chinese Restaurant in Jawalakhel.
Deepesh was “mentally prepared” to be stood up. But she pleasantly surprised him. She came and they chatted, this time person-to-person, over coffee and a plate of Momo. “I ate most of it because Deepesh kept on talking, a summary of life,” Ritu remembers. “Maybe he was nervous.”
Headstrong Ritu was coming out of a cold relationship. And persistent Deepesh did not give up. The unrelenting pursuit attracted Ritu more than anything. And for Deepesh, her simplicity did it for him. It was not love at first sight, both agree, but gradually, they could not stop loving each other.
The dating was fun. “We used to meet everyday,” Ritu shares. “Maybe because we both found each other later in life and wanted to make up for the lost time.”
Deepesh confides they met everyday, without fail. They went to “almost all the restaurants in the Patan area.” And this is also when they expressed their annoyance with Kathmandu for not accommodating interesting dating venues and ideas.
They also went to movies, mostly rubbish ones; “Actually our first movie was so bad, we had to leave during the intermission,” Deepesh says.
The couple went on motorbike tours, a newfound love for both, to most of the outskirt villages in the valley, and at times, bicycling around town, especially during bandas and holidays. They went to watch the opening of the National Games 2009 together.
The romantic couple was even interrupted once by a bunch of policemen when they were hugging by the street “after a quarrel.”
“We fought and we were making up. So before departing, we hugged each other. A few policemen came and said: Sister, keep these acts inside the four walls of your room,” Deepesh confides. “An upshot of a frustrated mind,” Ritu wraps up.
After a few months, Deepesh took Ritu to meet his family. He did not tell them that they had met over the Internet. “They still don’t know,” Deepesh says. “How do you even begin to explain to your parents who don’t use the computer that you met on Facebook?”
“It’s impossible for many to fathom that you can meet over the Internet and it’s not sketchy at all,” Ritu adds.
Deepesh deactivated FB after the two started to date, but has recently come back on it.
Facebook today has made the idea of courtship very public and very feeble. While the Facebook coupling may not be ideal, for the Shrestha couple, it has worked just fine. Deepesh believes that technology has expanded the idea of love, romance, relationships and coupling. It has broadened the horizon for lovers to explore more with email flirtations, flurry status messages, emoticons and lovey-dovey text messages.
“And it’s not fickle, as suggested by a few,” Deepesh says. “I think, on the contrary, it helps couples strengthen the foundation. And makes it easier.”
There is also no awkward etiquette of asking out, and Deepesh likes it. If there was no FB, he says, they probably would not have met. Deepesh is not even sure if it would have been a love marriage.
“I was open to arranged marriage, but I needed to know and like the girl, I had told my parents,” Deepesh divulges.
The couple got married on June 29 last year, after dating for 18 months. They still Gchat and send messages through FB but did not reveal whether they still send pokes to each other.
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