Originally published in March 2020.
Are we really doing this? Are we really trying to date right now? I’ve never put much stock in the minimum-return grind that is modern dating, but damn if it isn’t an endless source of surprise. You might be home keeping your surfaces cleaner than normal and googling creative recipes for white beans but there are human beings, real ones, trying to get laid during a global pandemic.
Sex is definitely a basic human desire. It just feels a little…ill-timed? I mean 627 people died in Italy yesterday and I don’t know about you but I’m the furthest thing from turned on by this news. Who are you? The ones seeking sex in sequester? What do you think you’re entitled to? Are you assholes or just really, really unintelligent? I’m fine with either explanation I just need to yell at you for awhile.
I used to get upset seeing people be so brazen about their requests for commitment-free, hell even last-name-free sex via the apps, regardless of what the other party is looking for. But I don’t even have capacity for that baseline disgust anymore. Now I’m more incensed by the fact that during a literal global plague, some people still have dick appointments top of mind.
And it’s not just sex! How many “love in the time of Corona” essays have you read in the last seven days? How many more pitches on the same topic have poor editors had to wade through? What is it going to take to hammer home the fact that a deadly virus infecting the planet is not—and I can’t stress this enough—a time to fuck with love? I don’t even want to know what it would take to get people to treat self isolation seriously. I feel like we’ve already seen what it would take and it’s still being ignored. Probably because humans are trash and we deserve to be wiped from this earth like so many failed Etch-A-Sketch endeavors but I digress.
This is where we’re putting our manpower? Because being single is the problem right now? Ok.
Can I ask, why is dating during Coronavirus even a concern here? Is this really what we’re worrying about? Is this the time? I’ve received not one but two pitch emails from a dating app that shall remain nameless both because I hate dating apps and also because its name is an atrocity trying to sell me on the adjustments and improvements they’ve made to their functionality so that people don’t have to go without dating despite being socially distant. People’s lives are at stake but your singleness is a bigger problem, sweetie — let’s not overlook what’s important here.
As a single woman, it actually turns my stomach that any attention at all is given to ending our single status during a time of global goddamned crisis. I have sworn off dating apps forever but you know what might get me to download one? The app that choses to divert its manpower away from making single people not single anymore and into something that might actually fucking help. We’ll date in July, it’s fine.
Is dating really the craving right now? I get that we’re all feeling isolated, perhaps singles more than others, but where is our sense of the greater good? I know that we’ve only been socially distancing for a week but I feel like the message of planetary threat should have sunk in by now! Yes, yes, Coronavirus is terrible but so are my romantic prospects right now, so could someone get on that? Thx bye!
You can’t stock up on sex. Ain’t that—forgive me—the tits? Sex isn’t a marketable good you can cupboard away for when you need it and masturbation begins to feel a little one-note. You can’t just get sex whenever you want it during global pandemic, which is a sentence I never thought I’d have to write but here we are.
Oh, wait, I’m sorry—you can stock up on sex. It’s called being in a real relationship, and people who are currently in one are having all the sex the quarantine-ignoring morons are trying to procure with their thumbs. I guess all those ghosts and phantoms or whateverthejesus we call men who just plain don’t have the manners to respond to text messages should have thought more carefully about tossing women aside so gallantly pre-holiday because they didn’t want to buy them a gift. You’ve had every month of every year to secure a bedfellow, but you chose to treat your approach to dating like a conveyor belt of sushi rolling by, plucking the items you wanted at your leisure, knowing more would always follow right behind. Rethinking who we’re “just not that into” right now, aren’t we Brad?
I know I’m not the only one aghast at the behaviors of the insatiable on dating apps right now. Artist Violet Clair has launched a petition to ban those ignoring Corona Concerns from dating apps, as they’re no longer fodder for funny memes—they’re an actual goddamned biohazard.
Solo-use sex toys are cheap and Amazon is still delivering. The world that once trained people to swipe for effortless sex has closed its digital borders, and those seeking to hop the fence anyway are truly the scourge of the planet—and I knew that before this shit.
Maybe what comes out of all this is perspective. Maybe it will serve to elevate our collective consciousness and change the way we view dating and partnering entirely. Maybe modern dating will move away from single serving sex and into the realm of “potential apocalypse teammate.” Because I can assure you, those who have partnered with someone are keenly aware of their choices in life right now, and I for one am pretty proud of everyone who chose wisely. I’m not saying I’ll approach every future potential relationship wondering whether or not he keeps a well-stocked crisis pantry, but I’ll certainly ask myself if I could stay home with nothing but him and a cat for two months.
The conversation with a friend that inspired this internetty vent.
This used to be none of my business. It was upsetting, sure, but in truth the bad behaviors in the dating world had little to do with me, because I’d chosen to remove myself from them and focus instead on connecting with human beings of repute in real life. My writings on these topics served to entertain, if not enlighten, but really — do what you want, it’s your life.
Except now it’s not. Now it’s all our lives. Now it’s our elders’ lives. Now it’s a 44-year-old New Orleans DJ’s life. Now it’s an Indiana couple dying together over iPads lives. And I can assure you that all those lives, all our lives, and all the lives we can’t fathom will be affected by this virus unless you stay the fuck home are far more important than your next orgasm.
Sex, dating, flirting, interacting with the gender of your preference, I’m sure all of these things are important to you—to all of us. But honestly, they don’t fucking matter right now. They aren’t going to matter for a few months. The lack of regard and reverence given to the situation at hand in favor of something as stupid as a hookup is something people should be ashamed of. And I can promise you, when this is all over, when we’re out in the summer (or fall, unless you dipshits get it together) sun connecting and hugging and celebrating with each other again, the ones who acted responsibly, maturely, and with a level of care for the global community, will be the ones getting all the action in the world. If you tried to text your way to a blowjob in late March, you ain’t getting shit.