Is Online Dating During This Pandemic a Good Idea?

A few weeks ago, when the new coronavirus pandemic was really ramping up in the United States, a married friend asked me what dating would look like for single people. Amidst my shelf-stable food-buying and working from home, I thought this was a weird question. I’m accustomed to swiping on my couch with no optimism, so I responded that things would probably stay the same. I also secretly hoped that swipe apps would be a more magical place where you could fall in love sight unseen like a cast member on Love Is Blind.

Honestly, that hope proved true—in some ways. For a lot of people, dating right now is exciting. It feels like talking to your middle school crush on the phone from your childhood bedroom. But as the reality of life under a pandemic sets in, things are also getting pretty dark. Every state in the country is under disaster declarations, and people across the nation are feeling the financial fallout from the virus. When your match texts, “How are you, bb,” and you write, “I lost my job,” it can take the romance out of things. So as the quarantine Carrie Bradshaw that literally no one (not one person) asked for, I have to wonder: Should we all stop dating until the worst of this subsides?

Last week (which feels like 12 years ago), I wrote that many of us would get ghosted during this pandemic. I suggested that we make peace with being ghosted since everyone is dealing with extraordinary circumstances, be it sickness, caregiving, anxiety and other mental health issues, job insecurity, or just the overwhelming emotions that come with either being homebound or having to be out in the world when you’d much rather be safe at home. This wasn’t an excuse for poor behavior. It was a nudge toward finding compassion for the people on the other side of our screens.

I stand by the idea that not everyone has the emotional bandwidth to fully commit to dating right now (ghosting is still trash, FYI). There is too much uncertainty swirling around during this pandemic to waste time second-guessing intentions. People are isolated, afraid, and looking for genuine connections, which is why, if you are going to date right now, it’s really best to be as upfront as possible about what you want (or what you think you want). From the start, you can lower the odds that you’ll wind up hurting someone else—and probably make it easier to find what you want.

If you want to find someone to have FaceTime sex with regularly, be unapologetic about it. If you’re looking to swap cat videos or binge-watch TV shows on Netflix Party together, that’s valid, too. If you have a wedding Pinterest board and are swiping with the intention to meet your match, that’s not a bad thing. There are no wrong reasons to date—escapism included—but try to be transparent about what you’re after. Because if you’re not, you might meet someone lovely, be totally unprepared to give the emotional labor they’re looking for, and wind up in a messy situation.

Choosing to date someone on even a slightly consistent basis (which, right now amounts to texting, talking, and video chatting regularly) means that you have to make room for all of the ways dating can be both a responsibility as well as a treat. That’s true no matter what, but our current circumstances make it even more complicated. It means that when you ask someone how their day was, you have to be prepared for them to tell you that they sobbed in the shower. When they’re in a bad mood because they’ve been cooped up for days, you can’t just say, “Cool, well, I’ll talk to you later.” When they ask you to violate social distancing by meeting in a park, you have to explain why that’s an objectively terrible idea. You get to ogle their pictures of inventive meals and the cute nieces and nephews they miss and the adorable dogs they’re considering fostering, and their risqué pics, too—but actually dating someone means you also need to listen when they talk about the scary stuff. So many of the ways you’d date IRL are magnified in this situation. Intimacy is accelerated, but that comes with a lot of work.

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