PUT TO THE TEST
Lustful singles are using their coronavirus antibody statuses to woo online matches. But meeting up with paramours who test positive may not be wise
THEY’RE single and have the paperwork to mingle. Eager daters across the country are boasting about their coronavirus antibody test results when they’re out on the prowl. Some are even including the status of their test results in their online dating profiles, using their possible immunity to score a real-life lover in the middle of a pandemic.
“About a week and a half ago, my clients started asking questions like, ‘Maureen, this person that you matched me with, do you think they’ve had the coronavirus?’ ” says Maureen Tara Nelson, a Long Islandbased matchmaker who plans to ask new clients about their COVID-19 status going forward. “We’re asking people if they’re comfortable sharing if they’ve had it, and if they’d like to know if the person they’re matching has had it.”
Nelson says the health precaution “keeps clients more safe, and in the know,” but a clean bill of health doesn’t necessarily mean singles are safe for sex and other in-person intimacies.
Expect apps to screen users’ medical histories, too. S’More, a dating app founded by a former Bumble executive, recently partnered with tech company digiD8 to develop features “to ensure that your relationship with your own health is in your control,” according to a press release.
While a positive antibody test can provide some evidence of an immune reaction to COVID-19, it’s neither a foolproof immunity passport nor a guarantee against reinfection. So even as the tests become more accessible, singles remain wary of hooking up — or even meeting up — with anyone, antibodies or not.
Still, antibody talk is something Breanna Locke is already seeing on dating apps.
“One guy on Hinge tried to convince me to come over by saying that he’d already had the virus and recovered, so I wouldn’t get it from him,” Locke, a 29-year-old associate book editor in Salem, Mass., tells The Post. On Twitter, she called the COVID play “the new . . . lie men are telling to try and get laid.” She’s not the only one who finds the move cringeworthy.
“I was talking to a guy on FaceTime, and he had his mask off [outside] when we were chatting. He was saying how he had the antibodies,” says Hell’s Kitchen resident Lauren Harkness, 41. “He was a little casual with his boundaries, and I thought, ‘Ugh, I can’t meet you. I don’t feel safe.’ It was a turnoff. He basically said, ‘Hey, do you want to meet?’ ”
Harkness, who works as a sex coach, doubts the man understood the test, although she admits she doesn’t either. “I can understand how the test feels tempting, like, ‘I can go back to doing what I was doing before.’ But you still need to practice the same precautions you’d be doing otherwise: social distancing, washing your hands and wearing masks,” says One Medical’s Dr. Navya Mysore. “It’s challenging to figure out chemistry over a Zoom call. But for the time being, it’s probably the safest way to go.”