Help! I think I'm falling in love over Zoom
Lying comfortably on her back, Allie looks up into my eyes and graces me with another one of the big smiles that I’ve quickly grown to cherish since matching with her on the dating app Hinge last week. It’s our third date. The first two went exceedingly well, with seamless conversation uncovering like-minded worldviews, agreeable senses of humor, and even some respective vulnerabilities. By this point, as the third-date rule dictates, getting a little randy was natural.
“I was wondering how long it was going to take me to get you into bed,” I say, sparking a laugh, considering our current circumstances.
Indeed, this is the first time I’ve been welcomed into Allie’s bedroom, but this experience has only been made possible thanks to the magic of contemporary video-communication technology.
Such is courtship in the coronavirus quarantine of 2020.
“You look so good,” I say into my phone, also in bed, at my apartment in Queens. Allie, whose name has been altered here out of respect for her privacy, thanks me, miles away, from Brooklyn. Earlier this evening, in an attempt at normalcy, we each dined on home-cooked meals – chicken, rice and steamed broccoli in my case; pasta with Beyond Burger chunks in hers – while video-chatting on Zoom, dressing up as though we were meeting each other at a restaurant – I wore a blazer, shirt and tie, while she donned a Creamsicle-inspired spring dress and dangling earrings.
Now, over FaceTime, the conversation turns to sex, and our possible compatibility in that arena. About five minutes in, it becomes apparent we are, in fact, very compatible in that arena.
We disclose some sexual predilections that, like our political perspectives, are in lockstep.
It somehow feels as though heat is being exchanged between our screens, almost no different than if we were lying next to each other. When I ask Allie to unbutton the top of her dress – a wish she grants – it happens with effortless spontaneity, like all of our other interactions. Driven by the evidence that Allie’s obviously into me, and the fact that we’re only on video chat, an unusual amount of self-confidence flows through me. I can almost play out the prospective, intimate next steps in my mind from muscle memory, the only hindrance being the smartphone in my hand.
I begin to tell her: “I’m so turned on right now.”
But she doesn’t hear the whole sentence. My screen goes black.
Fuck. I realize I’ve made the rookie mistake of not charging my phone