6 minute read
Love in the Time of Corona
By Angie Palmer
Last week, my friend Caleb messaged me about his latest romantic fling. He met a girl on Tinder who shared his passionate interests in techno music, Tempelhof Field in Berlin, and obscure films. She was also a student in New York City, he learned, and so naturally they began to discuss their favorite New York nightlife spots. They took shots together, smoked a few cigarettes, and already started planning their next date. Hours, and half a dozen gin and tonics later, they finally ended their ravenous conversation at 4am when his laptop died. Oh yeah, this was all done over FaceTime.
I find it almost comical how so many of my friends are going on virtual dates during one of the biggest crises of our lifetime. The world as we know it may cease to exist (at least for the time being), but this hasn’t stopped people from coming up with creative ways to continue furthering the agenda of their romantic lives.
One of the most creative stories I heard comes from Jessica Riley, who also lives at the epicenter of the pandemic in New York City. She told me about a first date that consisted of a guy who biked through Brooklyn and stood on the opposite side of the street from her. The two faced each other and made conversation while sipping coffee they had each separately brought. And this is only the beginning. Jessica then continued to tell me about a second guy she had started seeing. One of her closest friends organized a daily Zoom hangout, “I didn’t know their other friends” Jessica explained to me over the phone, “but they kept including me and requesting that I join these group (Zoom) sessions, and as time went on, I started to get to know their friends better and one of them I started talking to on the side.” Jessica then explained to me how her and this guy have started talking to each other daily, sharing virtual coffee and checking up on the vegetable plants he taught her how to grow inside her apartment. When I asked her how she felt about the whole situation, she was slightly torn.
After talking to Jessica, I started to understand why so many single people are in search of some level of intimacy during this pandemic, even if it’s strictly virtual. And isn’t it normal, even on a biological level, for humans to turn toward companionship when confronted with catastrophes like a global pandemic? Perhaps this can begin to explain (or hopefully alleviate some embarrassment) why so many of us have started binge watching cringey dating shows like Netflix’s Love is Blind or Too Hot to Handle in quarantine. I’ll admit, even I’ve dabbled a bit in these awful shows. But if you’re a single person during COVID-19, you may benefit a little from vicariously living through a bunch of ridiculous reality stars on their quest for love.
But what about those of us who aren’t single? Many couples have recently transitioned into a 24/7 relationship in the confinement of their homes. I talked to Emily Berry about her experience with being in a relationship during COVID-19. Emily and her boyfriend’s transition is about as extreme as it gets. They started their relationship with four months of long distance, then moved into a one bedroom Brooklyn apartment together. But Emily was very adamant about defending her relationship’s unique trajectory, “doing four months long distance made us appreciate our time spent together in person even more.” She did admit the biggest struggle so far has been the fact that she lost her job due to COVID-19, so while she is trying to find things to do to pass the time, her boyfriend is still able to work from home and stay somewhat busy, “we’re having to learn how to interact with each other when we are experiencing vastly different realities while being stuck inside the same apartment day-to-day.” I asked her what activities the two enjoy doing together in quarantine and she very bluntly stated, “Have sex. Play games. Cook. Read.”
It also makes sense to me that many couples are passing the mundane weeks of quarantine with sex. On April 3rd, Tamara Abraham published an article in The Telegraph explaining that online lingerie sales have skyrocketed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some companies have reported as much as a 60% increase in the past month.
Yet, however jealous single people may be of those of us quarantined with a significant other, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies for couples, either. Eric Upton is going through what I can only imagine is every couple’s worst nightmare during this pandemic: a breakup. Eric’s thengirlfriend moved from school in New York City back to Southern Florida where they originally met, “Then quarantine happened and especially for her added a lot of stress to her life.” Even though they weren’t quarantined together, this didn’t stop the anxieties surrounding COVID-19 from permeating their relationship, and ultimately the two decided to go their separate ways.
For most of us, the typical breakup routine includes abundant support from friends, long nights of heavy drinking at bars, throwing yourself into work, and finding any way to distract yourself from the current situation. So pretty much everything that violates social distancing etiquette. I asked Eric what was especially hard about breaking up during a quarantine and he explained that he missed their weekly meetings, (in which he assured me consisted of taking an immediate shower and washing the clothes he was wearing upon arrival) “getting to go to her house every ten days or every week was like my breath of fresh air during this quarantine. It was the only time I let myself go anywhere, other than like the store to buy groceries, other than that, that was the only place I would go. So not having that escape has been stressful, you know, of course during a breakup you miss the person you were with but I also miss the escape during this quarantine time.”
Eric stressed the difficulty in not being able to see his friends, but like many of us, he has found solace through technology, “I’ve had therapy sessions with my friends at night over video games.”
It’s safe to say that a pandemic like COVID-19 has drastically affected every couple a little differently. I remember back in February, when I sat at a dive bar in Williamsburg with my friends Rachel and Amanda. The two had been living together in New York for a while, until Amanda accepted a job working at Planned Parenthood in Florida. It was their last night before Amanda’s move and four months of long distance while Rachel finished up her grad degree at Columbia University. The two were clearly in low spirits that night and I kept reassuring them that they would be reunited shortly. With hindsight, I couldn’t have been more right. Just two weeks later, Columbia had transitioned to online remote classes. Rachel immediately moved to Florida to be with Amanda. I asked the two of them what the biggest struggle of being stuck at home together 24/7 had been to which Amanda immediately replied, “we’ve never really struggled with being in each other’s company...I feel like every day we’re being two crazy girls who are on summer break in the neighborhood...we do stuff in the garage, and then up here, and then we’ll go outside and play, then drink coffee, then have sex, and then watch a movie and go to sleep. Just fun times.”
As Amanda strummed an acoustic guitar in the background, I thought about how nice it was to hear that some people had managed to make the most of the current state of disaster our world was in.
*All names have been changed
