The pandemic — and a partially shut down economy — hasn’t stopped Valentine's Day or dating, in general.
Even while people scramble to get a vaccine appointment, romantics are planning something special for the weekend. And some people who began the pandemic single have found love.
Laura Fattaruso had been on numerous dating sites since before the pandemic.
“I think I was on OkCupid since 2010,” Fattaruso said. “Not continuously.”
“I think I rejoined, like, in March,” Bilgesu Sümer said.
The two met in April 2020 and are now a couple, sitting side by side on a couch during a Zoom interview.
“I wasn't expecting this to work out so well,” Fattaruso said.
“Me neither,” Sümer said.
But from the beginning, Fattaruso and Sümer easily hit it off.
“We spoke on the phone several hours every night for weeks, getting to know each other before we met in person,” Fattaruso said.
Over the course of a month, they learned they shared a sense of humor. They swapped stories about being graduate students at UMass Amherst.
Sümer talked to Fattaruso about working toward his Ph.D. in political science; Fattaruso spoke of her work toward a Ph.D. in geoscience, specifically in earthquake mechanics.
“I was just enjoying the fact that there's someone who wants to talk about tectonic plates to me, but also knows more than I do,” Sümer said. “So, I'm like, ‘Oh, tell me more!’”
After a month of really getting to know each other, they met for a socially distanced date — outside.
“So when we did meet in person, it felt like higher stakes than normal,” Fattaruso said.
“Definitely,” Sümer agreed. “It was different. The only other thing then to me that was remaining was just to be responsible, because there's lots of COVID anxiety-inducing situations that involve scenarios around dating.”
Get your minds out of the bedroom; he was also talking about getting to know someone through their friends.
Over Zoom, a Saturday night date with Fattaruso’s friends watching “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” became a regular thing.
“That was an OK substitute to actually meeting people,” Sümer said.
COVID-19 has forced most people to change how they get to know a future partner. Some are getting tested before they meet, but everyone has a different comfort level, said matchmaker Lanie Delphin.
One of her Mass Match clients this past year wanted to meet someone in person — immediately.
“A lot of people didn't want to do that right away,” Delphin said. “But he did find someone. They’re risk-takers, and they found each other.”
Overall, Delphin sees people during the pandemic giving each other more chances than in the past to prove who they are.
“They’re going in slower and deeper, they're feeling less pressure, and they feel isolated so they’re looking forward to talking to someone,” she said.
Delphin has given out a lot of dating advice over the past 18 years. Most of it hasn't changed in the pandemic, but she used to tell her clients to meet in person quickly, not spend time getting to know someone by phone or email.
We are a very judgmental society, Delphin said. One typo or a misheard comment and that person is off the list of potential partners. But during the pandemic, it’s a lot of video calls for however long it takes to feel comfortable.
“Video dating was the original dating services back in the 1970s,” said Steve Penner, who helps people write online dating profiles through his company, Your Profile Doctor.
Penner worked at eharmony for years and was the founder of the long-running Boston-based dating service LunchDates. Few people are doing that these days, he said.
“Think about what it was like before the pandemic. You know, there were single people going on two or three dates a week. It’s just changed dramatically,” Penner said.
This era reminds him of what happened during the AIDs crisis and in the weeks after Sept 11, 2001. Everything just stopped for a while, he said, and then life resumed.
“What will be very interesting looking forward is how the vaccine is going to impact dating. You know, eventually the question [will be], ‘Have you had the vaccine?’”
For some, another question has surfaced: Will anything change for couples who met during the pandemic once the rest of their social lives resume? Laura Fattaruso is asking that.
“Like, how will it shift our relationship because we do spend so much time at home,” she said. “And I'm definitely more introverted and comfortable with the amount of time that we've been spending at home, where as I know [Sümer] is more social.”
“To be honest,” Sümer said, “my point of view is that I don't think any anything can get worse than this, so if it works out under these conditions…”
And sitting on that couch, they both laughed.
