My recent experience dating during shelter-in-place:

If you’re single, odds are that you’ve been asked, “What’s it like dating during the coronavirus?” Welllll my friend, it’s like dating during regular times (read: terrible), but 10x worse because the odds of meeting someone just went from 1% to 0% since few of us have single, male roommates. This isn’t an episode of New Girl, after all.

Things got weird initially. All sort of dating disasters from my past popped up. Seattle Sheriff started Snapchatting me, a NYE makeout from 2016 started responding to all my IG pictures with compliments, a guy who hit on me 7 years ago and now has a live-in girlfriend started DMing me about his “decades long odyssey to spend time with you,” Big Suge DM’d me to ask for running advice….clearly, no one was exempt. But then things started to settle down by end of April.

Shelter-in-place has separated us into these defined cliques: The Singles, The Couples, The Couples with Kids, The Unemployed, The At-Risk, etc. And while I do feel connected by the fact that we’re all in this situation together, it’s affecting us all so differently that I feel incapable of understanding what this experience is like for folks in other groups. Each have their own unique challenge. For example. I have never been more grateful to not have kids than right now, and I also realize that some folks might be feeling alone despite living with partners or family during this time. However, since this is a story about my experience, I will tell you that I (cue the dramatics) feel discriminated against as A Single during shelter-in-place! What do you mean I have to stay home by myself for months on end, with no end in sight? How am I supposed to meet someone? Will the government give tax benefits to us bachelors/bachelorettes who have been forced into this solitude? I’d even take an arranged marriage situation right now: take a Buzzfeed quiz and get matched with a suitor. Higher odds than my current situation of masturbating.

I’ve rarely felt alone as a single woman in a vibrant city but shelter-in-place stripped me of my usual ‘distractions’, like friends, happy hours, workout classes, office culture and parties. My neck was locked up for a few days and I couldn’t turn my head to the left and at one point I thought it was moving down my back and I would soon be unable to move, and I had that dark, single person moment of, I’m going to die alone in my apartment and no one could know for days. I’ve had to look, really look, at the somber, make-up free face in the mirror with the newly appeared dark spots and think about makes her happy when stripped of those things. It’s been uncomfortable but it forced me to spend time imaging what the future looks like for a happy Wendy, single or married.

I had stopped swiping in February as I wrapped things up with The Cole Valley Bartender, Tatted Writer, and started things with The Mayor, and then shelter-in-place started and I decided there was just no point in starting things up with someone new virtually. I did go on one virtual date that first week with yes, another bartender. We met back when happy hour was still a thing, on Valentine’s Day of all days. He was tall with blonde curls and a big smile. Soooo cute. I left him my number on the receipt since it had worked so well last time, and believe it or not, I heard from later that night!

Hey Wendy (curly one), thanks for the number and being my favorite today. Don’t tell the other people they get jealous. Definitely into your vibe but seeing someone currently.

Was I 2-for-2 or 1-for-2? No matter, it was the nicest rejection message that I’ve ever received. To my surprise, I heard from him a month later!

Hey Wendy, weird text to send but things didn’t really work out with the person who I was seeing when we met. If you ever want to grab a drink let me know.

I was thrilled! The universe was rewarding me for putting myself out there. We made plans for the following week but then shelter-in-place hit and we turned it into a FaceTime date. He taught me how to make my favorite cocktail, made one for himself, and then we continued chatting while walking around our respective neighborhoods. The activity transformed what could have been a dry interview into a fun activity. The texting petered out as SIP continued and he finally told me, “Sorry been out of touch just not really feeling the whole long distance vibe right now.” If you couldn’t guess before, yes he’s a surfing bro. Funny how SIP made us “long distance” but I understood.

My optimistic side crumpled when SIP got extended to May and I cried. It felt like my life was on hold but I realized that was because of how I was living it, and this situation wouldn’t change for many more months. What was I going to do about it? I started swiping. One of my first matches was with “Jack Ryan.” Jack attended a military school (my second one in the Bay Area, how??), rode bikes, skis, and attended the same business school as my roommate. Lots of commonalities made the FaceTime first date easy. He had first suggested a social distance bike ride but I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, not with roommates. Six feet is the quarantine version of a condom. “I don’t know where you’ve been, Jack!”

Our first date lasted 90 minutes. I remember thinking he looked a little disheveled because his hair was long, but cute. The conversation flowed easily, we had a lot in common and he asked questions. By the end I was grinning and I had the odd desire to touch him. Oddly didn’t have that with Surfing Bartender, who I thought was objectively more attractive.

Our next date ended being up that social distance bike ride. Meeting up during quarantine means having a weird version of the “let’s be exclusive” chat super early.

“I’ve only seen my two friends from 6ft away.”

“I’ve only seen my roommates.”

I was stumped on what to wear. Didn’t need padded bike shorts for a 10 mile spin but also couldn’t get away with jeans given my thighs and propensity to sweat. Plus, a helmet makes me look like a dude so I wanted to wear my hair down to compensate, but the helmet limits your options. I ended up going with dark jeans to hide sweat spots, hair half up and down, big hoop earrings to really hammer home that I was a woman in case anyone thought it was a man bun, and mascara.

The first thing I noticed in person was his size. From 6ft away he looked to be my height, 5’8″, and not the 5’10” as advertised on his profile. Swallowing my disappointment, I mounted my bike and we pedaled to Ocean Beach and did a lap around Golden Gate Park and then stopped at the Conservatory of Flowers for a picnic. I had brought a beer for myself and he had brought beers for both of us, plus a snack. It passed in a blur and I couldn’t tell you what we talked about except that he was a great conversationalist with the same sarcastic sense of humor. He biked me part of the way home before we waved awkwardly and promised to do something again.

Our third date was a proper bike ride. When he proposed it, I started to wonder if he was looking for a cycling buddy instead of a romantic partner, but the athlete in me couldn’t say no. He wanted to ride to Stinson but I hadn’t been riding much this year so I only made it as far as Pantoll station. He pulled out chocolate chip cookies out of his jersey for a mid-ride snack. That he baked.

I rode home with a full belly and a big ass grin on my face.

Our next date thankfully didn’t involve bikes or my nemesis the helmet. Instead we had drinks and takeout burritos in Lafayette park. It started as a warm, sunny day but SF being SF, the fog started rolling in as soon as we plopped down our blanket and by 8pm our teeth were chattering too much to even talk. I was hoping he’d kiss me, I was living alone at this point and no longer had to be concerned with spreading to anyone else, but instead we waved from maybe 3 ft away. We met a week a later in Duboce park and I brought to-go margaritas and all these stories that I wanted to share with him. I had brainstormed with Tinker Bell prior to the date about how to broach the topic of touching but thanks to those margaritas, he needed a bathroom and I conveniently had an empty apartment a few blocks away. Once he was inside it was, Game. On.

He kissed me in the kitchen, we dry humped on the couch (Sorry, roomies) and he ended up spending the night. The Covid wall was successfully broken, hopefully my vagina walls were next.

Dating during the coronavirus has felt like if “Love is blind” and “Too hot to handle” had a Netflix love child. I obviously knew what Jack Ryan looked like from his Bumble profile but quarantine forced us to take it slower and we spent an entire month just talking without any physical touch. I truthfully don’t know if I would have continued seeing Jack Ryan had we met in regular life. I am, ashamed to type this out, shallow in regards to height, and was initially put off by his stature. I think there’s a chance I would have noticed that upon walking into the bar, decided there was no attraction, and not given him a second date, but maybe I would have thanks to our great first conversation, I really don’t know. Fortunately I couldn’t see his height via FaceTime or on a bike which allowed us time to build an emotional connection. I was concerned that first month that there was no chemistry but when he finally kissed me, I didn’t want it stop. I still don’t.

I’m still working through this—the cynic in me says I’m maybe latched on to him because of shelter-in-place and I’m lonely and my vagina is purring because I hadn’t been touched in months, but I’m trying my best to ignore that because he’s great and it’s okay to just be excited, no disclaimer necessary. Time will show if it’s the man or corona. And here’s why I like him: he’s a great listener, he’s thoughtful, he’s intentional, he’s smart, he communicates, he’s equally invested in my pleasure, he gives me the spotlight to be weird, he’s active and he’s handsome. In the words of Issa Rae, “Hold up, he dicks you down, makes you laugh, and he don’t work at the airport? What’s the problem? Cause I don’t hear it.” Me either Issa, me either.