Fauxbaeing is the new dating trend

The term fauxbaeing may be new but the idea is not. It has been used in pop culture as a twist in the plot for both romcoms and romance novels for ages. In fact, the Chinese have even taken this concept and used it as a business opportunity renting out fake boyfriends to single women via hire-a-boyfriend websites. While a select few have chosen to use robotic partners in their imaginary world of romance, there are still others who rely on their active imagination to come up with the ideal girlfriend or boyfriend to keep pushy parents and relatives at bay.

When imagination plays cupid..

Family functions like weddings and festive occasions can be stressful times for singles, who are faced with a volley of queries about their single status from different members of their family. From pushy parents, nosy neighbours and aggressive relatives, all believe they have a personal responsibility to get you hitched. And in their overzealousness to achieve this goal, they end up being intrusive and obnoxious with their line of questioning often cornering singles with little or no escape. Can you blame them in that situation for giving in and buying some time by creating an imaginary boyfriend or girlfriend? Shivam Iyer, an advertising professional lays the blame squarely on nosy relatives who do not know when to stop. He says, “If you are single after 25, it becomes an obsession with relatives to get you hitched at any cost. They hound you about your single status, and bother your parents driving them up the wall, and leaving them stressed out. They in turn, and out of concern for your well-being end up making things worse for you as you are either forced to get married in haste or choose a temporary solution by making up a relationship, depending on how conservative or liberal your parents are.”

Fauxbaeing is old wine in a new bottle

Call it what you want, Fauxbaeing is simply a new dating term to describe what has been happening for a while at least when it comes to your circle of friends. Says psychiatrist Dr Hemant Mittal, “As a trend, this is slowly catching on here, and is a matter of a concern. It may start off as being harmless, however, sometimes people start buying into the lie and the imaginary world they have created that the real world always falls short of these unrealistic expectations.”  

Clinical psychologist Seema Hingorrany, agrees and adds, “Fauxbaeing is still not a common practice out here as people are not really comfortable talking about their relationship status with family. However, having said that there are people who invent mystery partners to flaunt to a few acquaintances. What it does is give them a temporary respite from questions they do not want to field at this point of time. However, what one needs to be careful of is it not becoming a pattern where one uses lies and deceptions to get away from reality. Also, one has to be careful as to not let this imaginary world take over their psyche so much that they lose touch with reality.”

While the reasons why someone may choose fauxbaeing may vary, what experts do agree on is how unhealthy it can be in the long run, as it creates further complications and only acts as a temporary solution. A fat lie can only impress people for some time, ultimately people will call your bluff.

Did you know?

PlentyOfFish an online dating service has predicted a list of dating trends that people will be grappling with including Fauxbae’ing (foh-bey-ing) described as pretending to have a significant other over social media when you’re actually single. In fact, according to the site around 19 per cent of single men have apparently witnessed someone pretend to have a significant other over social media when they were actually single.