Modern dating in India makes it clear: Women are done babysitting men

Everyone swore the “nice guy” was the safe choice. Loyal, eager, always agreeable. He has a name now: the Golden Retriever boyfriend. On the surface, he looks dependable. In practice, his eagerness often masks avoidance and leaves the planning, the decisions, even the conflict management to his partner. In modern dating in India, what once looked like affection now feels like dependence on women to carry the relationship. The result is less romance and more emotional labour. 

By contrast, the Black Cat boyfriend is broody, self-sufficient and harder to read. He may not charm with grand gestures, but his quiet attention signals something women increasingly value: relief from carrying all the weight. For a generation raised on OTT proposals and Bollywood-style declarations, it marks a reset. 

That shift is visible not just in relationships but in who gets romanticised. Ranveer Singh’s flamboyant, larger-than-life Retriever energy stands in contrast to Vicky Kaushal’s quieter, steady Black Cat presence. Increasingly, women are choosing the latter. At first glance it seems the harder choice: a quiet, unreadable Cat over an easy-going, affectionate Retriever. But human attraction rarely aligns with logic. 

A 2011 study titled He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not found that people were more drawn to someone when they were uncertain about how much that person liked them. The ambiguity kept them thinking about it longer, which in turn intensified attraction. That psychology helps explain the appeal of the Black Cat boyfriend, while the Retriever’s predictability fades into background noise.

Romance is no longer measured in fireworks but in consistency, not in performance but in presence. 

The nice guy in modern dating in India: loyal or just a people-pleaser? 

Being a nice guy often translates into being a people-pleaser, and that is where the red flags begin. A Golden Retriever boyfriend is not usually mean— a mean Goldie is unimaginable — a confused, indecisive or helpless one is far more common. The same loyalty that feels safe at first can leave women without real support when it matters most.

Take Gururgam-based Megha Marwah’s friend’s partner, who sat in silence while another person tore her down.  “He didn’t have her back.  He didn’t object to it because Goldies don’t like confrontation,” says Marwah, who ended her own relationship with a man who started texting non-stop after just a few dates. “One needs to play it cool initially and not come across as too eager–that could give your date the ick,” she says. 

“Kindness is essential but chronic people-pleasing can backfire,” says Dr Chandni Tugnait, Psychotherapist and founder-director, Gateway of Healing. “They are so focused on avoiding conflict or approval-seeking that they suppress their own needs, opinions, and preferences,” she adds. 

More often than not, that eagerness is less about love and more about dodging friction. Conflict avoidance is a type of people-pleasing behavior that typically arises from a deep rooted fear of upsetting others, according to Healthline. The performance of niceness is less about generosity and more about fear of rejection, which is why it feels hollow to women.“Being nice could be coming from a place of insecurity and a tendency to be liked by everyone or fear of rejection,” says Shriya Sharma, 34, a Delhi education consultant. She identifies as more of a Black Cat herself — less outwardly cheerful, more inclined toward deeper conversations. For her, relentless optimism can feel dishonest,  “A person can't be positive or cheerful all the time because the world is going to sh*t. That could be toxic positivity.”  

Tugaint explains, people-pleasing doesn’t just flatten conflict, it erodes connection. “Because instead of being honest about discomfort, disagreement, or desire, they default to ‘whatever makes you happy.’ Which can feel like emotional disconnection, indecision, or passive resentment, over time.” 

Golden Retriever boyfriends, mama’s boys and the burden of modern relationships

The problem with a Golden Retriever boyfriend is not unkindness, it’s indecision. Every choice becomes an errand: what to eat, where to go, how to spend a weekend. Romance starts looking less like love and more like running household logistics for two, except only one person is doing the work. “It then shifts the emotional weight. It may seem like they're being nice, but it leaves you burdened and subtly resentful. Indecisiveness can also mask a deeper issue–someone unsure of who they are or what they want. And ‘anything works’ gets tiring. Never expressing a preference can also feel like detachment,” says Tuganit. 

Yet not every Goldie relationship collapses under the weight of indecision. Some find a rhythm in shared dependence. Akhil Kumar, 24, a Mumbai PR professional, shrugs off the fact that he relies on his partner for even basic things. “I just ask her for my documents when I need them. She doesn’t mind but people do judge me for it,” he says. In return she leans on him for a social circle and it works. 

Two Golden Retrievers can balance each other out, but when dependence goes unchecked it mutates.The man who cannot pick a restaurant eventually becomes the man who cannot manage his own life. That is the point where the Golden Retriever overlaps with India’s enduring archetype: the mama’s boy. What it conceals is a man raised to be cared for rather than to care. His dependence is not simply a quirk of personality, it is the outcome of family systems where women are expected to manage him at every stage of life.

“The structure and repetition of family hierarchies in India leads to boys having prolonged exposure to the comfort of not having to make decisions. Which leads to lack of accountability when something doesn’t work out,” says sociologist Shambhobi Bagchi.

“Girls [on the other hand] figure out early on that they need to assert their agency and make decisions in order to be heard.” This imbalance sustains patriarchal norms. For men, “holistic development is stunted by the system itself—so much so that [they] don’t even realise it’s happening. They expect certain things from their partner without conveying it to them, [creating] a lack of communication that doesn’t work,” she adds.  

Writer Akansha Rukhaiyar recalls an ex who leaned on her for everything, even mediating fights with his friends. “I told him that I am not his mother,” she says. The point is blunt, but it captures a dynamic many women recognise: suddenly you are the one reminding him how to function. Less a girlfriend, more unpaid staff.

The mama’s boy is not just a man who calls his mother too often. He is the by-product of households where women are expected to manage men from childhood to marriage. “Women are tired of having to 'raise men' emotionally, mentally, and even practically. They’re done being the therapist, the planner, the motivator, and the emotional anchor,” says Tugnait. “The emotional labour of constantly guiding a partner toward maturity, accountability, or basic self-awareness can be draining. Women want equals who carry their share, take initiative, and understand that love isn’t just about gestures.” 

In India, this baton passes seamlessly: mother to girlfriend to wife. What is framed as family values often translates into invisible labour for women. 

For many women the decisive, self-sufficient Black Cat boyfriendfeels like a relief. He may not bring spectacle, but at least he does not outsource adulthood.

The Black Cat boyfriend: broody relief or emotional dead end?

The Black Cat boyfriend is alluring precisely because he is not a Golden Retriever. He doesn’t cling, he doesn’t need hand-holding, and he doesn’t flood your phone with “where are you?” texts. In modern dating in India, that feels like freedom. He offers relief after years of managing Golden Retriever boyfriends and mama’s boys. 

Yet women are realising that the Cat comes with his own set of red flags. Ambiguity may feel sophisticated, but it can also hide disengagement. Rukhaiyar argues that Cats aren’t necessarily silent types at all. “There’s a misconception that Black Cat men are bad communicators and unavailable. The conversations will be real and deeper, unlike with Golden Retrievers, who stick to surface-level talk,” she says.

Not everyone buys that depth. For many, decoding moods, guessing intentions, and sitting with silence feels like another kind of work. What looks like independence can just as easily turn into emotional withholding. “Black Cat Men's emotional distance and sense of mystery can turn into stonewalling, leaving their partner [to] figure out signals rather than receiving clarity. In the long run, being broody doesn’t always translate to being emotionally mature,” explains Tugnait. 

Culturally, India has always romanticised the brooding male archetype — from Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man in the 1970s to Ranbir Kapoor’s Rockstarangst. The Black Cat may be the 2025 version of the same fantasy: desire wrapped in silence. But mystery is not maturity. Without reciprocity, the Cat risks becoming a rebrand of the same old stoicism that kept men at arm’s length for decades.

The Princess Era in modern dating in India: why women want equals, not projects

If the Golden Retriever boyfriend was about eagerness and the Black Cat boyfriend about mystery, meet the latest archetype: Princess Era boyfriend, who is all about visibility. He makes no secret of wanting attention, care, and even pursuit. And unlike the mama’s boy, he doesn’t disguise it as dependence.

Dating apps reflect this shift. Bumble’s Global Dating Trends 2025 found that 64 per cent of women globally are more honest about what they want and refuse to settle for less, while 53 per cent agree that conversations on masculinity need to evolve so men can define what positive masculinity looks like for themselves.

“Equality has brought around men who also want to be chased. And women are here for it,” says Marwah. 

For Sharma, this shift is about acceptance. “If you're consciously going into a relationship where you think you can change a person, you aren’t really accepting them for who they are at the moment.”

“This isn’t about power play, it’s about reciprocity,” adds Tugnait. “Women no longer want to teach grown men how to communicate or validate feelings. They want equals who carry their share, take initiative, and understand that love isn’t just about gestures, it’s about showing up consistently, emotionally, and otherwise.”

Even men admit the shift. “Men have always been in their Princess Era. They are only owning it now because they feel less judged for it. Men like being pampered,” says Kumar. For some, that means less about skincare rituals and more about flipping expectations, planning the date and being pursued. 

The Princess Era allows women to step away from caretaking, and men to step into reciprocity without hiding behind stoicism or magical mystery.

It’s not that grand gestures or brooding silences have lost all appeal. It’s that neither fixes the imbalance of the unpaid labour of managing men. The real reset is simpler: romance, in 2025, isn’t a project. It’s two grown-ups showing up.