The new rules of post-lockdown dating
Kate Mulvey on the challenge of finding love when you’re still supposed to be socially distancing
On last week’s Super Saturday, I found myself dining in Chelsea with a successful banker in his 60s. From the moment he pulled up his chair, we both felt the fizz of mutual attraction. We were giddy at having a meal out in an actual restaurant for the first time in months and swapped amusing anecdotes about wearing hazmat suits to the supermarket (ha ha) and whether we’d risk flying ever again.
Then just as we were waiting for the bill, he lent over to kiss me. Whoa! What was he thinking? Images of ventilators and 24/7 coughing flashing through my mind, I panicked, took out a bottle of hand sanitiser and practically squirted it all over him.
Welcome to the world of postlockdown dating, a surreal experience being played out by singletons like me all over the country. A world where closeness and intimacy – the usual means of fast-track bonding – with the possibility of contagion have now become such dangerous pursuits that our desire could become our demise.
But equally, after 10 weeks starved of human warmth, we are desperate to feel the thrill of getting physically together with someone.
Being single in lockdown has been a curious experience. My married and coupled-up friends have spent this time playing happy families and baking banana bread. I had 10 weeks with only my reflection and the characters in the Netflix dramas for company.
Now that we can finally meet in bars and restaurants, it feels like such a heady experience I want to run helter skelter into the arms of those who I have only been able to connect with virtually for these past few months. And I am not the only one.
According to dating.com, 84 per cent of singles are excited about getting back to dating IRL. We have certainly been putting the work in. Like a lot of midlife singletons during lockdown, I managed to stay sane with a marathon of digital courtships – dinner dates on Zoom, Facetiming men I matched with on dating apps. One lawyer binge-watched episodes of Breaking Bad just so that he could get to where I was in the series, and we could watch it in virtual togetherness. There seemed to be a new keenness to connect, with these strange times focusing the mind of what is important.
But now we have been released from our homes, the dating world has shifted into something that is chaotic and fractured. What are the new rules of the new normal now we are being encouraged to view every other human person as a potential biohazard?
“It is so risky,” the Covid cautious tell me, quoting R numbers and the growing number of re-lockdowns. They are right in one sense, the virus is still with us, and we don’t know what will happen next. Nevertheless, the pull of emotion over reason is a fundamental human trait and one which is bound to scupper even the best-laid Covid plans. I may tell myself pre-date that, no matter what, my hands will stay resolutely in my pockets. That is until the gorgeous man opposite pulls me towards him in an amorous clinch, and suddenly I am breathing in tons of viral load.
Realistically, we can’t spend the next few months pulling out tape measures to see if one’s date has encroached on the one-metre rule. We have to start to live our love lives to the full. But how to get the dating ball rolling again when 60 per cent of those interviewed by dating. com said they still felt cautious about postlockdown dating.
The trick, as I see it, is to draw up a list of dating behaviours that don’t stray too far from the guidelines. Know when to say goodbye. On a stroll along the river last week, my date kept leaning in and putting his arm around my waist. I realised that if he couldn’t care two hoots about Covid caution, then, by extension, he didn’t care about me. If you decide to take it to the next level, how do you navigate the socialdistance rule? Bars are full of the unihibiting effects of alcohol. One chilled glass of Gavi too many and the polite elbow bumping has gone by the wayside and you are all over each other. A man I met one evening this week suggested sitting opposite each other, “The table acts as a barrier,” he said, laughingly. He was right. To be honest, dating still feels like something rather taboo. Even though society is opening up, shaking hands with a total stranger is seen by many as high risk. Perhaps the way forward is to take the Covid test before you meet. This has certainly worked for me. Since I contracted the virus back in March, tested positive and recovered, my supposed immunity has acted like a sort of dating golden ticket. In the past few months whenever I have mentioned it to a potential suitor, the response has been overwhelming positive. One man said he was going to give me a big hug – “well, you are immune,” he said.
I replied by telling him guaranteed immunity is still questionable. Still, until we find a vaccine or the virus goes, could this be a possible solution to the dating problem?
Some friends think producing a Covid test before any action in the puckering-up department is the only way forward. A sort of statement of intent. To kiss is to commit.
In one sense, Covid has simply slowed down the dating process and made us really think who we want to be with. This can’t be a bad thing in a world where we swipe and ditch so quickly that we fail to connect on any real level. As an older woman out there, maybe it is time to exploit my Covidsecure dating advantage after all.