Are We Running Out of Time? Being Single in a Pandemic

Are We Running Out of Time? Being Single in a Pandemic

Many of us called ourselves hopeless romantics pre the ‘turbulent twenties’ (a phrase I have decided to name this decade as it just feels so fitting), but none of us truly understood the meaning of hopeless romantics until we were hit with a global pandemic whilst single and had to just put up and shut up (or so the Government would have liked) with the British Government literally imposing a sex ban. Now, you might be reading this and thinking, ‘Come on, aren’t there bigger things happening right now?’ And you would be entirely correct, and noone is denying that, but this article is not about that. As someone who has not had more than a few dates with the same person, let alone a serious relationship in now twenty-four years of living, the realisation that my ability to meet people was now destined for the world of internet dating only, gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘hopeless romantic’. I can ensure you for many years I was the person who said I would never get dating apps, and if my friends ever made me one for a joke, I’d delete my profile without even seeing what the app was all about. How the tables have turned, as I actually met someone on Hinge, and I am using the word ‘met’ very loosely. To chat through Instagram DM for a whopping three months and not be able to meet (in person) for ‘corona reasons’ is a real catch-22 because you want to be upset, but the reason is entirely valid so you are just left feeling hopeless. There are two things that are so incredibly gut-punching about being single right now. The first is that you or others are either too scared to leave the house, don’t want to break the rules and don’t necessarily want to commit to someone you barely even know. The second is that you constantly feel like you are running out of time, as a woman who literally just turned twentyfour, I often have nightmares of my biological clock running out; and if they are not about that, they are about calculating how long I will need to have known someone, before getting engaged, and then getting married, and then having a child, and if there is enough time left for all of that. This is one of the deep problems rooted within our society for young adults, this timeline set out for us that we are ‘supposed’ to follow, and for women, a biological clock we must beat in order to fulfil our ‘purpose’ and become mothers. As much as this article is about how much of a disaster it is to be single right now and wanting to find someone, it is also about how not everyone needs to follow that timeline. In fact, not everyone even needs nor wants romantic love, but there is nothing wrong with it if you do. What I miss most of all is physical touch, there is only so much that Love Honey can do. I hope reading this article as a single person in Britain has made you feel validated and if you are not single right now I hope it has given you an insight into what it is truly like to be single right now. People may be joking on Twitter about how this pandemic is wasting their 18–25 railcard years, but the reality for single people right now is this is wasting away our dating years. However, I want to leave you with one thing: time is a social construct and you are not running out of time to find someone, even if it does feel like it, this will end and you will find someone.

By Kirsty Taylor