Love in Pandemic Times - Entry II: Do You Want to Be in My COVID Circle?

graphic by Lauryn Alejo

**Names changed in the interest of protecting the interviewees’ privacy

While some people flocked to dating apps as a defense against the creeping boredom of self-isolation, others had to put a pause on an already blooming romance. So what about the people who were just beginning to develop a connection they didn’t want to end? I considered the suddenness of the quarantine measures that were put in place a couple of months ago. In my home city, Toronto, everything seemed to come to a stop in the span of a week, when the province officially announced a state of emergency. Along with the rest of the city, my friends and I were cut off from our usual social habits, unable to go out for drinks at the end of the week or sit for extended hours in our favourite coffee shops. For those of us in the early stages of a new relationship, or actively dating, those environments were a necessary backdrop.

My friend Matias had just hit it off with a guy on Tinder named Rick a couple of weeks before quarantine measures were put in place, having had only enough time to go on three dates with him before officially self-isolating. As you might imagine, “three dates” translates to roughly nine hours of knowing someone. Neither Matias or his new love interest had been to the other person’s home, let alone met their friends or family. Suddenly, self quarantine meant spending most of their time with exactly those people, since both of them were now unemployed or working from home, and only leaving the house for essential goods. Even long held friendships were relegated to FaceTime during this stretch of the pandemic, as families began taking shelter in their respective homes. Since public dates were consequently out of the question, where in the parameters of quarantine would a new relationship fall? Evidently that was a cue for some to have a conversation about status, sooner then they would under normal circumstances. 

Before Matias could express to Rick that he wanted to continue seeing him through the pandemic, he had to decide what that would look like. The matter had seemed like it would be left relatively ambiguous unless Matias initiated a conversation. He wanted the answers to questions such as- “Would he and Rick be able to meet in person or visit each other’s homes, or might that be considered irresponsible?” or “Should they hold off on physical interaction, and instead relegate their budding relationship to FaceTime along with all their other friends?” To Matias, it seemed that there were a lot more questions to navigate than they might have anticipated at this early stage. Though the question of exclusivity had been on neither person’s radar, certain parameters had to be in place if they were going to protect each other from exposure to the virus. 

On Matias’ prompts, they began to discuss whether they were comfortable entering into each other’s “COVID circles”. If they were to continue physically seeing each other in the enclosed spaces of their homes, that would have to be a conscious decision that involved the exclusion of outside players. Physical interactions with multiple partners would be off the table. 

Matias was prepared to make this decision and invite Rick into his home for their next date, but Rick felt it necessary to decline. While he did want to keep dating Matias, the pandemic had required him to move home with his immune compromised parents. For Rick, having Matias over was not a present possibility, and going back and forth between his home and Matias’ posed an equal risk to his family. Having no concept of how long the provincial quarantine measures would last, they decided to continue their communications virtually until it was safe to meet up in person. They hoped at most that it would be a month.

Thus began the next few weeks of FaceTime chats, text chains (and nude pictures), as Matias became increasingly frustrated with the lack of physical contact. The now long distance relationship that he hadn’t expected to be in was made all the more difficult by the fact that he’d been willing to make physical contact since the start. He had never considered himself a person who would do well in a long distance relationship to begin with and while he understood that Rick was taking measures to be safe and comfortable, Matias sometimes wondered if it meant Rick wasn’t as interested in the relationship as he was.

That was Matias’ main concern the first month, he told me in a phone conversation, and it’s only grown in the months since. The provincial state of emergency has been extended multiple times. Three months have passed, and quarantine measures are only starting to lift in small increments with most establishments only offering to go services, and forcing the public to stay out doors. More than ever, Matias wants to transition his relationship with Rick back to a state of physical contact, but Rick has said that he isn’t sure that anything will be possible until a vaccine is created. The problem continues to be that Matias can’t fully gage Rick’s feelings from their virtual interactions. He had felt that in the limited time before quarantine, they had made a genuine connection, and he imagines that if the pandemic had never happened, they would now be progressing into a more serious relationship. Instead he finds himself occasionally misinterpreting messages, that in turn lead to needless arguments. It’s so easy to over analyse a text, I conferred with him. Unlike an in person conversation, the words remain on a screen that you can revisit over and over again. When you’re already insecure about how a person feels about you, it’s even easier to read into messages. Unfortunately, ongoing social distancing measures means that Matias can’t compare these virtual conversations with live tone. Whereas I told him, I can often gage how a new partner responds to my feelings towards them by body language and mannerisms, Matias has to rely exclusively on text and video chats. 

On a positive note, Matias shares, this reliance on conversation has helped him to practice being more open in order to avoid misunderstanding. He says that if he’s unclear about a text now, rather than worry, he pushes himself to ask outright. From that practice, he believes that his communication with Rick has become notably more open and he’s comfortable sharing things he wouldn’t earlier in their relationship. While he continues to struggle with the uncertainty of when they’ll be reunited, this openness has lifted some weight off the frustration of exclusively digital communication. They won’t likely use the boyfriend label to describe each other until the pandemic has ended, Matias tells me right before we get off the phone, but he’s practicing viewing that word as just what it is, a label, and enjoying the less physical aspect of their relationship in the meantime.