Shriya Pilgaonkar opens up about her love life: I haven’t really dated much

Actor Shriya Pilgaonkar feels she was harsh on herself in her 20s, and admits that she has found a new definition to finding love and dating in her 30s.

“As you are evolving as a person, your idea of love evolves. But the starting point is really developing a relationship with yourself. You know, in my 20s, I think I was trying to understand myself, there were things I was still trying to accept. Perhaps I was very, very hard on myself in my 20s,” Pilgaonkar tells us.

The 33-year-old adds, “But towards the late 20s, and when I turned 30, there was this beautiful feeling that I felt of just like self love and accepting myself wholly with all my flaws and everything. And I think that really empowered me.”

“I feel like every person has their own journey with, you know, when they’re gonna find love, and social media and pop culture gives us this, has sold this notion to us of how love has to be, and you know that that’s often not the case, there is really no age to fall in love,” shares the actor, who was last seen in an episode of web series, Dating These Nights.

Here, The Gone Game actor reveals that she finds strength when “when actors like Neena Gupta come out and talk about their experiences and openly share their stories of finding love at a certain age”.

“So, although I’ve not been on dating apps, and I don’t really date as much, to be honest, I have friends who are on dating apps, and they have so many fun stories to share. They’re open to so many different experiences. And I also find that really fascinating,” she says.

She might not be much into the dating scene, but she wants to keep her private life away from the scrutiny.

“I haven’t really dated much, to be very honest, and I don’t wish to talk about my current status or anything like that… For me, the joy is truly in the smallest things and when I enjoy a meal with a person that itself is a big thing. It doesn’t have to be something grand. I know I really like someone when I want to share these everyday simple moments of life with that person,” says the actor, who has featured in The Broken News, Guilty Minds, Haathi Mere Saathi and Crackdown.

Pilgaonkar reveals societal pressures and expectations come with age.

“Love means different things to different people and that love doesn’t always mean that it needs to culminate into marriage. And, if, somebody doesn’t even, you know, want to marry, so be it. I feel like society ends up putting a lot of pressure, especially on women to make these decisions and to make them quickly. And that’s one thing I feel that the stereotype or that’s a notion that we need to sort of move away from, you know, where we need to let people make decisions and not make them feel bad about being single or being unmarried or pressurizing them, you know, which often I think the narrative outside in the world makes you feel like that,” she ends.