Consider This from NPR - Q & A: Expert Advice On Love, Dating, And Pandemic Relationships

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

We asked for your questions on navigating love and dating during the pandemic. Therapist and sexologist Lexx Brown-James has answers. She's joined by Sam Sanders, host of NPR's news and pop culture show, It's Been A Minute. Listen via Apple or Spotify. And University of Georgia social scientist Dr. Richard Slatcher shares some findings from his global research project, Love In The Time Of COVID. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

As far as Dr. Richard Slatcher's work goes, there are two types of people in the world. We really find that there are two groups, relationship haves and have-nots, and that's really delineated by how their relationships were doing going into the pandemic. Slatcher teaches in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia. For about a year, he's been running a research project with collaborators around the world called Love in the Time of COVID. He's found that more satisfied over the pandemic because they're able to spend a lot more time together.

Whereas, not surprisingly, if your relationship was not great before the pandemic, odds are it has not improved. There's nothing so lonely as being stuck for months with someone that you don't feel very connected to. So that's one group, the relationship haves. The other group, people who went into the pandemic without a romantic partner. They're getting their other social needs met primarily through existing close friends or family members. People are really digging into their existing other kinds of close relationships more than trying to start new romantic relationships.

The common thread here is that for so many people, the pandemic has amplified whatever was already going on in their personal life. And that's been harder on some than others. All the therapists, all the sexologists I know who do relationships have been booked and busy since last March. Consider this love in the time of coronavirus. It's complicated. So ahead, we have advice and answers to your questions. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Friday, February 12th. in Africa. For our Black History Month special series, The Seismic Influence and Complicated Legacy of Marcus Garvey. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. Now, before we get to your questions about relationships and the pandemic, a couple more interesting things Dr. Richard Slater has seen. Early on in the pandemic, you may remember a lot

of anecdotal reports about divorce rates going up because more people were stuck inside together. We're just not seeing that in the U.S. In fact, we're seeing the divorce rate going down this year. There could be a few things going on. Some people have had more time to spend on relationships, even for couples and families that have been under added financial strain. Which is like the biggest stressor on relationships by and large, even in non-pandemic times. And in fact, that financial strain could even be a barrier to splitting up. The research suggests that financial commitment is a very important commitment that keeps people together even when they're not in great relationships.

But among people who have been able to maintain social connections, and especially those in close relationships, Slatcher has been surprised to see so many people not only doing well, but getting better over time. You see loneliness going down, you see happiness sort of slowly inching up throughout the pandemic. And maybe it could be, there are a lot of things I could explain that. We have more information now. I think we have a better sense, even though, of course, the vaccine isn't coming out as quickly as we hoped.

And there are these other variants that are making people anxious. But by and large, we're heading in the right direction here in the United States, at least. But let's be real. It's not that interesting to hear about someone's healthy, functional relationship. So we asked you, our listeners, to tell us about what questions you need answered when it comes to your pandemic love life. Just a heads up, a few of these questions do involve sex. Now to help us

answer them, I've got two guests here right now. Dr. Lex Brown-James. She's a marriage and family therapist and sexologist based in St. Louis. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. And a friend and NPR colleague of mine, you might know him from his news and pop culture show, It's Been a Minute, where they've also been discussing love during the pandemic, Sam Sanders. Hey there, Sam. Hi, it's good to be here. Although I'm still scratching my head saying, why me for romance and love questions? Because Adi, we're friends, you probably already kind of know this. My love life is like the end of a Michael Bay movie. A lot of explosions, destruction, and ultimately unfulfilling. That's true.

I mean, you have tweeted about your commitment issues, so I thought you were a good person to be on the program. Can this whole episode be just for me? Well, now that Sam has established his credentials, Dr. Lex Brown James, can I just ask you briefly, have you been getting a lot of romantic questions, issues coming up in your therapy? Adi, all the therapists, all the sexologists I know who do relationships have been booked and busy since last March. Lovers are rededicating to their relationships. I've had people say, I want to stop cheating on my partner. Can you help me do that? I've had...

Oh, that's nice. I'm like, well, my first question was, are you quarantined with them? And is there a safe place to talk? Do we need to have sessions in your car? And then there are folks who are like, I don't know if I want this. And we might need to do a stop on the therapy train to see if we need to get off this ride well then with that in mind i want to bring you the first question this is actually um from jack genteel he's only 21 he's from illinois um and he says that dating has understandably been unusual, but he's trying. He recently joined Tinder, which I don't know how he's 21 and only now joining Tinder. But he went on his first date since quarantine started.

Here's how he's feeling about it. Everyone has spent last year trying to get more comfortable being alone or being by themselves. And so now that the vaccine is starting to come out, how do you start to feel comfortable being with other people? Dr. Lex Brown-James, I want to start with you because in a way, this is a hopeful question, right? It's about looking ahead. Mm-hmm. I would say for Jack and for everybody, learning to be by yourself is actually integral, and I want him to hold on to that. And for them to hold on to that means that when they start to date, they're not going to lose themselves in somebody else's ish, whatever their emotional issues, whatever their baggage is. It's

like, well, I don't really like this. I can be by myself and be okay. That is an integral tool to have when starting to seek out relationship. Now, to start to build relationship, I want him to not like scuba dive soul deep into risk taking a vulnerability. I want them to dip their toe into vulnerability, share a little bit that feels a little bit risky. And that's going to give you a gauge of how you can start to learn to trust this person. So very small risk-taking is a key to start building up trust. Sam, to you, this question of how one starts to feel comfortable being with other people. Yeah, well, I got to say, as someone who has been living with just my dog and working remotely at home for several months now, I've seen myself change.

And we can't expect it all to just be like it was dating in the before times or living in the before times. It will be different. And how do I make peace with that and forgive myself in being different myself? All right. Now I want to move to a question from Rachel Krug. She got engaged last fall. And to her surprise, the pandemic actually brought her closer to her fiance. They aren't sick of seeing each other, but there is some monotony. So my question is, after a year of a shutdown and living in sweatpants, how do we keep our relationship fun and special and fresh when we see each other every day in kind of our laziest selves.

I love getting this question at the start of their marriage. I don't have the heart to tell her that this question is relevant in the pandemic age and not. Dr. Lex Brown-Jabes, you've been seeing couples. What are you telling them? So one thing, and some people hate me for this, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it because I tell everybody to do that. I take sex off the table. So we purposely withhold like being sexy for a while so we can build up arousal. And also we plan things in our household. So let's plan to get dressed up in whatever we want to plan to get dressed up with. Let's plan to do something funny every day. So we're laughing together, we're touching. And remember, like, you're seeing each other hang out, you're being your friends, you wouldn't judge

your best friend for coming over with no makeup and sweatpants and like holy draws. So why are we judging our lovers too? It's like, well, yep well yep i see you and you can still be really sexy in these sweatpants because you're just comfortable and you're you all right sam sanders do you have any thoughts on this i i i have no real parallel to this but i think about like my dog i have been walking my dog more than ever in this year of pandemic and about a month or two in i was like, I can't keep walking this dog on the same path. And so I just began to research different walks for the dog.

And it's been better for her and better for me. And I don't know if there's any kind of love parallel here, but like maybe what some of these couples have to do is research some new paths to walk to mix it up. I admire you trying to jump in on this one. That's all I got. That's okay. I support that.

I support it. Yeah, we support the energy you're bringing to this. Okay. All right. So staying with the theme of keeping a relationship exciting, our next question comes from someone in a long-distance relationship. Clark is from New York. He asks that we use his first name only because his question has to someone in a long distance relationship. Clark is from New York. He asked that we use his first name only because his question has to do with sex. All

right. So he lives a few hours away from his girlfriend. He has just started dating her and they're only able to see each other once a month. So here's his question. How do you navigate as much physical relationship as you can over Zoom? What are some resources? What are some things to try? What's out there to kind of spark that when it is a month between each time we see each other so yeah there there are a couple of ways we can do this right yes it can get monotonous through zoom and we can spice things up if you have the affordability to do it there are long distance sex toys that you can use that will send a vibration i'm sorry what now this is um yeah there are news you can use toys that are they connect to an app. So you can send a, hey, how you doing boo, to your lover. Right. And that's a lot of fun. And don't forget like what it's like to send fantasies, write a sexy story, tell them about the greatest time that you've had with them or things that you wish that you could do with them and send that. And then when you're together,

you have all of that arousal built up so you can do what you want to do. And you can be just a regular couple and hang out like we've done all the sexy things. We're tired. Let's just eat pizza and watch Netflix and hang out. Speaking of which, we got quite a few questions about virtual dates, how to make them less awkward, more fun. I feel like we should end there because we're heading into Valentine's Day weekend and people won't be able to rely on some of the kind of typical ideas of just going to the nicest restaurant you can afford and that sort of thing.

Could either of you jump in here with some creative ideas for virtual dates? Sam, I'll let you start. I mean, you could. Okay, it sounds like Sam's gonna need some help for valentine's day weekend sensing a theme here i just brought my questions for the good doctor you should have just brought your questions i'm gonna hit you up offline uh so valentine's day is hard i've even been thinking about this for my lover and myself right right? Do I order them something nice? Do I put on like something sexy and lazy? And I don't feel like it. We tired over here.

So what do we do? Look for things that you can do together, like in a group. So there might be like a Zoom quizzo where you go and you answer random questions. Let's try and maybe send somebody a meal. Maybe you have the same meal together. Maybe you take a cooking class, but you can do things even though you're individually separated, but you're still sharing an experience and working towards the goal.

It's a fun way to start to revamp what dating looks like now. Sam, I should have asked you this earlier. What have you learned in the last year about love in the time in COVID? I know you do a lot of interviews with people. You've been following the art scene deeply. How have you started to think about this time? Yeah, you know, we had an episode on my show all about how to date in the time of Corona. We've talked to mental health experts all throughout the pandemic about how to just deal with life as well. And the one

universal theme I've been hearing from all kinds of folks throughout this whole pandemic year is the only way to get through this is to forgive yourself and to be kind to yourself. All of this is new. We're doing the best we can. Give yourself a hug and just push forward. I guess that's my generic advice for everything right now, but especially for the love life. Thanks to Sam Sanders, host of It's Been a Minute. Check out his show at the link in our episode notes. And thanks to Dr. Lex Brown-James. She's got some relationship tools and resources on her website, which we'll link to as well.

You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.