COVER STORY Love me Tinder? Singles, sex and self-isolation
Tinder may have reported its best day ever, but Hattie Crisell says the dating landscape for singles is fraught with challenges – and reasons to be optimistic
in early march, I went on a first date with someone I’d met on the app Hinge. It was a good date; there was a spark and he was easy to talk to. Even then, though, the shadow of the pandemic was looming over us.
I’d texted him beforehand – cringing at the unsexiness – to say apologetically that I probably wouldn’t greet him with a kiss on the cheek. In turn, he’d suggested we pick a safer venue, as our original plan had been to meet in a tiny, eternally rammed pub, where being coughed on would be inevitable. We met and left each other that evening with an arm-pat and a smile. The next day, I woke with a cough and a fever, self-isolating for a week before the rest of the country went into lockdown. I kept exchanging messages with my Hinge date, though, and eventually, with a sense that we were doing something funny and novel, we set up a second date to be held over Facetime. After that came more Facetimes, phone calls and a Zoom ‘pub’ quiz too.
At first, it was exactly what we both needed – something to take our minds off the surreal horror that was unfolding in the news. But days started stacking up into weeks, and it wasn’t long before the magic faded.
So how do you keep a virtual courtship going with someone you’ve never kissed, barely spent time with, and have no prospect of meeting in real life for god knows how many months? It’s the predicament singletons everywhere have faced in lockdown. Though anyone who hasn’t been touched by tragedy or serious illness this year has a huge amount to be grateful for, there’s still a certain amount of dismay when you realise that your personal life is now in open-ended furlough.
Reactions to the dating freeze have fallen into two camps. There are the singles who have stopped bothering with apps, as they seem pointless when no real-world contact is allowed. ‘My love life has pretty much ceased to exist,’ says Lauren, 33. ‘The thought of having a Facetime with a stranger, I actually find quite intrusive.’
But then there are those for whom app use has skyrocketed, fuelled by endless time at home, mounting loneliness and boredom. Tinder enjoyed its best day ever on 29 March, with more than three-billion swipes globally. Similarly, Hinge has now launched a ‘Date from Home’ setting so you can indicate that you’re willing to video chat. On Bumble, distance filters have been removed so that matches are now possible between people up to 100 miles apart. Because what does distance matter when your local pub is shut anyway?
For those who live close to their matches, though, a whole new date option has emerged: the ‘socially distanced’ walk, in which you stroll together through a park, but two metres apart. Awkwardness arises, however, when daters turn out to have different thresholds for bad behaviour.
Sam, 39, felt fine in theory about arranging to see a woman he’d met on Hinge. ‘But,’ he recalls, ‘she was more of a one-metre distancer.’ Heading home, he thought of a vulnerable family member who was relying on him for food deliveries and felt guilty about the potential risk; he didn’t meet her again.
On the other hand, my friend Tom, 43, claims his romantic life is flourishing. He’s enjoyed ‘a load of sexting’ with ex-girlfriends, plus two enjoyable walks with strangers. ‘People want conversation now, rather than getting drunk,’ he says. ‘And Normal People has made everyone horny as hell.’
If you’ve seen the BBC adaptation of
Sally Rooney’s novel, with its vivid sex scenes and atmosphere of adolescent yearning, you’ll know the feeling; you may even have found yourself reaching for your phone after watching it, seeking human connection. A recent opinion piece in The New York Times argued that during this pandemic, sending nude selfies has become a ‘symbol of resilience’. Certainly, it can scratch an itch in lieu of skin-to-skin sex, which perhaps explains why many are turning to trusted former partners to swap X-rated memories and pictures.
And then there are those going further still into the forbidden world of pandemic hook-ups. A gay friend tells me that one of his mates has continued to meet strangers for sex during lockdown, as he believes he’s already had coronavirus and is probably immune. It’s a worrying trend that has prompted the sexual-health charity the Terrence Higgins Trust to ask people to ‘commit to wanking your way through Covid-19 lockdown’, by signing a Pleasure Pledge that promises no hook-ups.
Casual sex may be what some have missed most in isolation, but if pre-pandemic you were looking for a serious relationship or hoping to start a family, you may feel your plans have been disrupted more profoundly. As I approach my 37th birthday (likely to be celebrated with loved ones over Zoom rather than in person), the remainder of this decade of my life suddenly looks very short.
‘I worry about the long-term situation and losing time on that,’ agrees Lauren. ‘The egg-freezing conversation has raised its annoying head more than once.’ Another friend has gone one step further: after years of weighing up her options, she’s found clarity in this crisis, and decided she will try for a child alone using a sperm donor.
It’s daunting to think that, even as restrictions ease off, singletons are going
out into a world in which kissing or touching will, for many months at least, represent a danger to health. Yet there are reasons to be cheerful. The normalising of phone and video calls could be a gift to our dating futures – a way to weed out bad matches before they result in bad experiences and remove some of the anxiety from meeting a stranger. Now that we Facetime with everyone from our bosses to our elderly relatives, a pre-date call doesn’t seem so strange.
There’s also a new emotional openness in the air; lockdown has given many of us time to reflect on what we want. ‘I think it’s really hit home that I don’t like being single,’ says Manjit, 31. ‘I envy those with partners because they have someone to hug. I’m trying to be optimistic that this will be a reset for some men who’ve just been shagging around; maybe they’ll think, “Actually, having a girlfriend would be nice.”’
We could all benefit from that reset. ‘I think all this has forced me to take my dating life more seriously – I was sort of half-assing it before,’ says Sutanya, 34. ‘I hope that this experience will make people more vulnerable with each other, and more honest about what we’re looking for. I think intimacy will be more highly valued.’
Jane, 42, suggests that we may even see a welcome return to IRL romance, not just app dating: ‘I’m coming through this with a mad hope that, after re-evaluating priorities, people will find the bottle to start communicating in real life again. There’s got to be more joie de vivre in the air once we’re out.’
The world will look back on this year as one that shook us, broke our hearts and tested our resilience. But perhaps it could also be the nudge we need for a fresh start.
‘AFTER THIS, INTIMACY WILL BE MORE HIGHLY VALUED’