Speed Friending

by Gina Castro

Disclaimer: Mature + Sexual Content

ating in itself is an absolute pain. Approaching someone at a bar is almost archaic these days and navigating the sea of online dating apps can lead to a barrage of questions like is this match looking for hookups, a relationship or just a free dinner? And when you add quarantine to the mix, your dating life could become even drier than the Sahara Desert, or get the spice that’d make you feel “like a virgin touched for the very first time.” Madonna said it, not me. Anyhoo, yes. We’re talking about dating during quarantine. If you think about it, Netflix had us preparing for social distancing love affairs months before CDC. Its reality shows Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle both limit physical interaction to strengthen emotional connections. So for many of the people we spoke with, limited physical interaction helped them make a genuine connection with someone. While for others, the taboo around physical interactions, due to social distancing, made meeting inperson more erotic – sorry CDC. We asked Pensacola for its quarantine dating stories either wholesome or tragic, and boy oh boy did Pensacola deliver. The majority of the people who shared their stories with us chose to be anonymous. This article calls for quite a bit of unpacking, so follow us on social media @DowntownCrowd to join the conversation! And from the wise words of Pornhub, remember that the safest sex you can have during quarantine is with yourself.

Social Distancing? I Don’t Know Her.

Two years ago, Andrea went through

a pretty rough break up. Since then, she’s spent her time being a bartender in popular downtown bars and describes her dating life as “pretty much non-existent.” Then cupid, also known as quarantine, inspired our girl to try her hand at online dating. “Once all of this started happening, I was like well there isn’t anything else to do, so I might as well get online and see what happens,” Andrea said.

But what Andrea didn’t know was that dating during quarantine was going to give her the opportunity to connect with a love interest on a deeper level. A typical date for Andrea before the pandemic consisted of meeting someone at a bar and having a few drinks together. “Alcohol was always involved. Obviously, I’m in the service industry, but it was always around my dating life, so it’s been nice not relying on alcohol to have a connection with someone,” Andrea explained.

Drive-by Dating

When you hear the phrase “drive by” the first thing to come to mind is typically death, but after hearing about Angie’s wholesome drive thru dates during quarantine, we figured this title is a good combination of

danger and sweet. Angie is a bad mamajama. She works in the Navy as an air traffic controller. Crazily enough, Angie is the only person we spoke with who actually followed social distancing guidelines. And guess what, CDC – she’s still single. “I’ve already had to get tested for COVID one time and it hurt. I don't want to put myself in any situation where I had to get testing done again,” Angie said. “My dad is elderly and sick, so I didn’t want to take any chances of catching anything that I might bring home to him. I would rather be safe than sorry.”

So, she made a Tinder account and put herself out there.

“I ended up matching with this girl. We talked for three weeks via FaceTime,” Andrea said. “We decided to meet up at the Bay Bluffs Park and just have a Scrabble date with coffee.”

Okay, so as wholesome as this first date is, it’s quite risky to do nonessential activities during quarantine. It probably made the big guy upstairs a tad

Yet, Angie still wanted to go on dates with her Tinder matches, so she thought outside of the box. She discovered that the restaurant The Hangar American Grill, located in Milton, was doing weekly drive-in movies, so her and her date sat in their own vehicles, had their food sent to them and enjoyed a CDC approved first date.

Angie and Tom, Dick and Harry had several physically distant dates. Just to be clear, Angie didn’t date like all three of these guys on one date, but she is dating a couple of dudes and Tom, Dick and Harry just flows. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Since Angie and one of the Dicks both own Jeeps, they parked their Jeeps at the beach and laid in their own Jeep hammocks, at a respectable 11 feet apart.

“This is a good, gradual connection. I definitely think that this is growing a little bit quicker than I would normally do because we have been talking everyday over the phone.”

Andrea and her date, we’ll call her Jess, had an amazing first date. So, they went on several more outdoor dates from hiking the UWF trails to chilling in Jess’ Jeep hammock at the beach. In short, this love affair is classic Nicholas Sparks but like if he were a good writer. Although Andrea and Jess’ exclusive relationship doesn’t have a title yet, their connection has become deep and meaningful to Andrea. “This is a good, gradual connection. I definitely think that this is growing a little bit quicker than I would normally do because we have been talking everyday over the phone.” Andrea explained. “Normally, I wouldn’t talk to someone for two days because the social interaction was too much.” Spice Meter

Even though Angie and her dates were physically distant, she felt closer to them on an emotional level than she did with her dates before quarantine. “I've gotten to know them a lot better than we normally would have. Normally, we would meet up in person, go get dinner or get drinks,” Angie said. “I usually never talked to them after that. But with this, I'm forced to talk to them a lot more beforehand.”

Dating during quarantine has even changed what she is looking for in a connection. “Before I wasn’t so hung up on if they could hold long conversations. It was always a good thing that we could talk to each other and have things in common,” Angie explained. “Now it’s become very relevant to me. If a person were doing only small talk and we ran out of things to talk about, I stopped talking to them. I responded to those who were actually able to hold a conversation, so I think dating like this has been a lot better than before.” One of the guys Angie is dating, we’ll call him Brad, could potentially become a more serious love interest depending on how long he is stationed in Pensacola. “We’ve talked about when things open up, we’ll go out and explore because [Brad] hasn’t actually gone out and explored yet.” Spice Meter

Even though the shut down is over and popular date spots are gradually reopening, Andrea and Jess decided to keep their relationship simple. “Rather than going out to places, we’re going hiking again,” Andrea said. “It’s been really nice being out in nature and having nature fuel the dates.”

We’re happy to know that even during a global pandemic, love wins.

Hopefully COVID-19 continues to work in Angie’s favor and prevents Brad from leaving Pensacola too soon. If not, she still has the other guys.