Essay: Dating During a Pandemic

By Georgia Leipold-Vitiello

My date swears he tested negative just yesterday. I tell myself this in attempted reassurance. I take my temperature for the fourth time today (still 97.9) and check my bag for a third to ensure that I have the necessities (two cloth masks, two disposable in case my date forgot one, hand sanitizer, and pepper spray). ​
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A couple came into the restaurant where I work to get takeout for breakfast. After they left my coworker asked me if I thought that this was their first date. I asked why. She said because the man kept his mask on the whole time they were inside the restaurant while the woman took hers off as soon as they sat down at a table. She said that wouldn’t make sense if they were like minded or coming from the same household. 

These are the things that make impressions on first dates now. After all, I, along with approximately 1.5 million others per day, have joined the online dating community during the Coronavirus pandemic in search for human connection. 

The first person I dated this year I spoke to only over text and facetime for five months before we met in person. Three weeks later we would get into an argument over the definition of COVID precautions. I told him that I didn’t think that inviting fifteen strangers to his apartment counted as a safe gathering, he disagreed. 

The second, I sat with on his front porch for three hours. I never entered his house in the month that I knew him, per him and his roommate’s COVID safety agreements of only allowing those that lived there into the house. He himself had gotten the virus in May when one of his roommates had people over, initiating the agreement. 

The third person I went out with felt feverish a few days after we ate pizza in my kitchen. In the end no one got sick but the date certainly didn’t feel worth it every time I anxiously took my own temperature or made sure I still had my sense of taste. 

​The fourth had had the virus a month before and was within the two month immunity window but I was still anxious in the days before and after that he could still carry the virus or could have simply lied. 

The fifth took almost a month of planning and both of us were tested in that time frame before we agreed to watch a movie together. 

While dating during the pandemic may seem daunting, a nearly impossible task to form real connection while maintaining a safe social distance, others have found that it can be an even better dating experience for those who seek a more serious relationship as anything physical is off the table.

Forming connection during the time of virtual dates and staying six feet apart when in person may seem insurmountable for some because it requires far more effort and planning than before, but for others this has been a refreshing and welcome change from the often tiresome aspects of hookup culture. 

While I personally experienced heartbreak and loss during this past year, much of it stemming from encounters I initiated online, I also took comfort in every new person that I exchanged messages with that I was not the only person just trying to feel a little less alone.