My COVID-19 Pandemic Virtual Dating Diary
March 24, 2020
Dear V-Dating Diary,
I was excited and a bit nervous about my first virtual date with Avi, who lives across the river in Jersey City. I finally broadened my zip code and left the isle of Manhattan to find a good prospect. Well, virtually left the island.
Avi is a furloughed dentist I met on Hinge. He was laid off due to COVID-19, and like thousands of other people who were unfortunately left jobless due to damn ’Rona, he had plenty of time for a V-Date.
We had our first date a couple of days after the start of the NYC lockdown forbidding people to come within six feet of each other. All of the bars and restaurants closed, leaving open only essential businesses. It was Sunday, March 22. I certainly didn’t want to have our first date standing six feet apart inside of a bodega, or six feet apart in Hudson River Park on a freezing March day, like he originally suggested.
These certainly are bizarre dating waters to navigate. Neither I nor Avi had ever had a virtual date before. In the rare situation prior to COVID-19 when someone would ask to FaceTime rather than meet up for a drink, for some reason it raised a creeper flag.
We live in NYC with fabulous and unlimited spots to meet dates IRL: bars and restaurants for after work cocktails or dinner, perhaps a walk down the High Line, or maybe catch a show.
Would a V-Date be weird? Would there be awkward moments of silence? What do I wear? What if I wanted to end the date early? Would it be rude to say I had another call coming in? Who calls anymore? I thought.
That last question would be challenged because I’ve spoken to more people on the phone in the past two months than I have in the past two years.
I got ready for our V-Date as I would for any other date:
- Took a shower
- Brushed my teeth
- Straightened my hair
- Applied just enough lip gloss to twinkle through to the other side of the screen
- Put on a cute blouse
- Put on tight black jeans
- Spritzed my Chanel Chance perfume
- Hell, I even lit a candle that first date!
AND that first date was awesome! We talked for a few hours and had lots of laughs. Avi even texted saying he felt a connection between us and would like to keep up on the communication throughout this lockdown.
As the isolation days turned into weeks and then into months, however, things started fizzle out between Avi and me. V-Dating started to feel like the luck I have with dating IRL, when prospects do the fade out. I guess we both discovered the ease of going on V-Dates: there’s always another option out there. I was okay with the fade out because it turns out he doesn’t like dogs in the bed. That’s a deal-breaker for me. Next!
April 8, 2020
Dear V-Dating Diary,
As I found my V-Date mojo, I started to become more relaxed. I realized my dates couldn’t see what I was wearing from the bottom down unless I had a slip of the camera, so I went sans jeans after getting my V-Date legs wet with Avi. The second V-Date I had was with a cop. I wore my cute top again for this one but left the sweatpants on! He decided to show me he also put on a nice shirt but left his boxers on.
The cop was twenty minutes late to our date. How da f**k are you late when you had off from work for two days? Did he get lost making his way back to the couch from the bathroom? Oh well, some things never do change! We never had a second date.
April 14, 2020
Dear V-Dating Diary,
Then there’s Tom, whom I also met on Hinge, and with whom I’ve had the most fun V-Dates so far during lockdown. So fun we’ve even made it to two dates and counting. Tom is a scientist who lives in Brooklyn—a mix of brains, looks, and a very funny personality to boot! Although BK is a longer commute than crossing the Hudson to (maybe?) date Avi, at least it’s still NYC! Tom is working on a big project related to COVID-19, which ups his sexy factor—a man who is helping to save the world and get us all out of this damned isolation? YES!
On our second V-Date, we decided to leave FaceTime to move over to Zoom. I wanted to pretend I was on a beach because my vacation to Aruba had been cancelled. That weekend, holed up in my apartment when I should have been lapping up the sunshine and the Caribbean waters, was not looking so bad after all because I had Tom to look forward to seeing. On Zoom, I could change my background to a picture I took at Long Beach last summer. This is a great time to allow your imagination to run free, so you don’t feel completely isolated at home.
The second date went on for a couple of hours, and so did knocking back the drinks! When talk of Halloween (our favorite holiday) came up, we changed into our skeleton costumes. Coincidently, we both had skeleton costumes just lying around our NYC apartments. So there I am, sitting on Long Beach in my sexy skeleton costume, in my Hell’s Kitchen apartment, on the beach chair my upstairs neighbor lent me, complete with a starfish picture I had taken on a scuba diving trip hanging above it to really feel like I was by the ocean.
Meanwhile, there’s Tom in Greenpoint, BK, sipping wine in his skeleton costume with a Tiger King background. It was fun and silly and spontaneous—just how dates IRL should be! We gotta keep it interesting enough through the end of this lockdown to meet IRL. Avi fizzled out too fast!
I am starting to like Tom. So I dusted off my sewing machine taking up space in my studio and made him a facemask complete with a skull. He said it was badass. I contemplated riding my bike over the Williamsburg Bridge and throwing Tom’s mask to him from six feet away, but then thought it would be irresponsible of me when everyone else is self-isolating and I work in healthcare and don’t want to jeopardize getting myself or my residents sick. So I went to the post office, used the self-serve kiosk, prayed I put the right amount of postage on the envelope, and mailed him the mask. I’ll know in a couple of days if I mailed it correctly, LOL.
Our third V-Date is scheduled for later this week. We are kicking it up a notch and really pretending we are at the beach in our bathing suits, complete with fruity beach cocktails and beach music. I think he really just wants to see me in my bathing suit and f**k it, I’ll just roll with it because I’m missing the ocean so much right now and need to pretend I’m escaping the isle of Manhattan. I’ll keep you posted.
April 21, 2020
Dear V-Dating Diary,
I exchanged numbers with Robert, a good-looking journalist living downtown. We connected on Coffee Meets Bagel. The caption that piqued my interest was “Future Trophy Husband.” He seemed to have a very funny sense of humor, but this “relationship” would be very short lived when I realized how obsessed he was with his pet NYC pigeon. Yes, you read that correctly. He has a pet pigeon that apparently has free range of his apartment, building little nests out of pipe cleaners. Don’t get me wrong, I love all animals! But if he had at least asked me a few questions about myself and was not totally obsessed with his bird, then maybe we could have taken it to the next step of having a V-Date. Next!
Are we in May yet?
Dear V-Dating Diary,
Third date night with Tom! I was a little nervous last night trying to choose the proper beach attire for tonight’s date. Would he show up in a Tommy Bahama shirt and linen shorts, or would he go all out shirtless with swim trunks? What kind of beach date is this going to be? Would we be sitting at a beach bar in cute beach coverups? Or would we be on the beach, in the sun, lapping up the rays in our bathing suits?
I tried on two outfits the night before to prepare: first, a bikini with a crocheted, cream-colored coverup and denim shorts, and second, my plunging one-piece suit with black coverup and shorts. I didn’t feel comfortable bearing it all so soon, so I decided on the one-piece my friends helped me choose after texting them pics of the outfits. Cera said my attire was good, but it wasn’t “classy”; it was very “SEXY.” My chest did look good in it and I’ve gotta rock what I have now, while I still have it!
I figured I would start with the coverup on and see what he was wearing so I could decide what kind of beach date we were on. When 8:00 p.m. rolled around, I clicked the Zoom link he sent me earlier in the day and bam! There was Tom, shirtless, sunglasses on, margarita in hand, and cool beach music in the background. We had another two-hour date filled with lots of laughs and beach cocktails. He is definitely a fun guy and someone I hope to continue to get to know better!
We decided that when we can meet in real life, we will celebrate the opening of the world again by popping the limited edition bottle of Dom Perignon that has been sitting in my refrigerator for almost a year, just waiting to be opened for a really special occasion.
For our fourth date, we are planning on either a safari or pretending we are sitting in a real bar taking shots, or it could be a mix of both! Whatever we decide on, I know it will be a blast and something for me to look forward to after a long week at work. I am considered an essential healthcare worker, so I am still going into work every day. I never thought I would be so important!
Hanging on in there…
Dear V-Dating Diary,
There are a couple of upsides to virtual dating. Now that I’ve got the hang of it, it feels like V-Dating is less pressure, like I and my dates can really be ourselves from the comfort and safety of our own homes. I think it’s because there’s a sense of “we are all in this isolation thing together,” and right there is a shared common thread from the start.
We have more time to get to know one another because what else are we doing? Compared to going to a bar in IRL and then deciding within minutes if there’s a connection, virtual dating feels more personal. But seriously, how long can dating through your smartphone or iPad last without some sort of physical connection? I shall see! We are human, after all, and we have needs.
V-Dating feels like the norm now. It’s been two months since NYC has been in lockdown. I do kind of hope that when the world opens up again, we will still continue to get to know one another as easily as while virtual dating and build on the meaningful connections made through our tiny screens, just in the flesh.
(Oh, and update, the facemask I mailed Tom was sent back to me for insufficient postage today. I slapped on five more stamps and resent it. It should finally be making its way to Greenpoint in a few days!)