Dating after virus crisis will reveal lots

DEAR AMY » I’m a 55-yearold single male.

Can you look into your crystal ball and tell me what dating will be like for someone over 50, once it resumes, in the age of COVID-19?

Given all the caution afoot in the world (not mine, I’m ready), will I ever find a mate? — Alone Until I Die?

DEAR ALONE» This is a great question. I’m going to try to prognosticate.

One thing I can guarantee is a solid conversation-starter: “So — how has the pandemic treated you?”

This lengthy crisis has tested everyone in unforeseen ways, and how people have reacted to this global anxiety is revealing. You should be able to discern fairly quickly if a potential partner is compassionate, concerned, anxious, panicked, denying, angry, balanced (in your opinion), calmly cautious or raring to go. You might learn whether someone is temperamentally optimistic (it sounds as if you are), or gloomy around the edges. You might meet people who are grieving, feeling lonely, cooped-up and sad.

You will likely get to know one another online via videoconferencing before meeting in person (this is a positive postCOVID-19 development). Before meeting in person, you and/or your date may offer or ask for proof of immunity from the virus (if reliable testing becomes widely available). Your first in-person meeting might be held outside, at a distance. You probably won’t shake hands when you greet one another. If you are a disinfector, you might always carry an extra bottle with you, as a gracious gesture to offer to your date. If you don’t routinely disinfect surfaces, but your date obsessively does (or vice versa), that might be a deal-breaker.

Mask wearers will face a dilemma of whether — or when — to reveal the bottom half of their faces when meeting in person.

And most people (including you) will have learned to cut their own hair.

DEAR AMY » “About to Explode!” had a housemate who interrupted all the time.

We have a friend who does the same, and it came to define her (in my mind).

I later learned that she has significant hearing loss in her left ear, and I began to watch the patterns associated with her interruptions.

Much more often than not, those that she interrupted were positioned to her left. Now, I grab a seat to our friend’s right, and I babble away to my heart’s content. People are probably silently BEGGING her to interrupt me! — Rick

DEAR RICK » Several readers have suggested hearing loss as a possible cause for this habit. Thank you all.

You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson. com and follow her on Twitter @askingamy.