Life Kit - Love on lockdown: Tips for dating during the coronavirus crisis

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Lots of people want to find love, but the pandemic makes doing so more complicated. In this special episode, Sam Sanders of NPR's It's Been a Minute sheds some light on dating and relationships during the coronavirus pandemic.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Ahead of today's show, a quick note. Today is Giving Tuesday. That is a day nonprofits all over the U.S. come together to ask for support during what right now is a very difficult time. Just as meetings have moved online and we've gotten creative with virtual birthday parties, giving back right now looks a bit different as well.

Usually, if you want to give back, you might roll up your sleeves and volunteer some time. But with so much beyond our control, many of us right now are looking for other ways to help, even if we don't have a lot to give. One way to be part of something larger than yourself is to support the open access to information. This podcast, NPR, and your local public radio station are all available to everyone, thanks to those who donate. Truly, any amount makes a difference, so give today if you can. Just visit donate.npr.org slash life to get started so we all can listen tomorrow. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sarah.

I'm from Tampa, Florida. My tip for getting through coronavirus is to make paper cranes for others. Paper cranes are a symbol of hope and well-being in challenging times. And I think it's an appropriate thing to give to other people during this stressful time. Hey y'all, Sam Sanders here. I usually host another podcast, my show It's Been a Minute, but I am here in the Life Kit feed right now

for a special takeover. We recently put together a very special episode of It's Been a Minute, an advice show for dating and relationships during quarantine. It's full of tips on how to date online right now if you're single and how to keep the peace at home

if you are currently self-isolating with a partner. We wanted to share all that good stuff with you in the Life Kit feed. Also,

quick shout out, if you have a good tip about any of this, leave Life Kit a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email Life Kit at lifekit at npr.org.

All right, here's the episode. It's kind of funny. I met this great guy on Tinder. It was just your basic swipe right, swipe right kind of story. That is Dennis Norris II. They live in Brooklyn, and they had a story for me. We had our first date on Monday, March 9th. Where'd y'all go?

We went to this place that I love in the West Village called Marie's Cheese Bar. Okay. I'm very upfront about the fact that I really love cheese. It's like a food group for me. Like, forget the rest of dairy. It's just cheese. This was the most romantic date, according to Dennis. They had the restaurant all to themselves. And it never got busy. It was really

quiet. Good chemistry. A little bit older. He's from England and had actually just moved. A couple of bottles of wine. Good conversation. Butterflies. There were a lot of laughs. Then there was some dancing at this bar called Julia's. I was like, I want to make out a little. Do you want to make out? We should make out. This perfect date, it lasted about seven hours. I mean, come on. That's a 12 out of 10.

I think it might very well be the very best first date I've had. But then the world changed. By the time Dennis made plans for another date, coronavirus had changed everything. New York City and all of America was shutting down all around them. People were going into quarantine and there was really only one thing left to do. We really debated it. And at the end of the day, we made the responsible decision not to see each other. when a pandemic stops the world. Clearly, the Rona has not stopped matters of the heart. Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble report the length of user conversations

and number of messages have both gone up since shelter-in-place orders went into effect. In this episode, we'll hear advice on virtual dating for people trying to find someone new from home. And an expert will give us some tips on how to maintain existing relationships in quarantine. And of course, we'll hear some more pandemic love stories and questions from our listeners. After the election, the economy feels like one big, huh? Good thing

there's the indicator from Planet Money podcast. We take a different economic topic from the news every day and break it down in under 10 minutes. Topics like the home building shortage or the post-election crypto rally. Listen to the Indicator from Planet Money podcast from NPR and turn that huh into an ah. Since the beginning of women's sports,

there's been a struggle to define who qualifies for the women's category. Tested, from NPR's Embedded Podcast and CBC, takes you inside that struggle. Listen to Tested, the series that was named one of the 10 best podcasts of 2024 by Apple, Vulture, and The New York Times. It's season 20 of NPR's Embedded Podcast. Do you make resolutions in January? We do. Specifically, we make pop culture resolutions. We also check in on what we resolved to do this last year. Did we catch up on all those classic movies or finally write that novel?

Find out on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. First, back to Dennis and his cheese bae. Some good news, dear listener, they are still dating virtually. So that's been, like, how many weeks now? I think five or six weeks. I can't count, but something like that, yeah. That's a miracle. You know, sometimes I can't get someone to date me in the real world for six weeks.

What are y'all doing? I mean, I usually can't either. So the first couple of weeks, I think we were still holding out hope the quarantine situation might lift quickly. So we were really just texting consistently and kind of having conversations, but we weren't talking on the phone yet.

We weren't doing anything else. And about two and a half, three weeks in, I just felt a little bit of distance come. And I was like not feeling that. Yeah, because Cheese Bae has to stay. Cheese Bae has to stay. Cheese Bae is maybe a romantic hero. So Cheese Bae has to stay.

Yes. And so we actually hopped on the phone and we had a conversation. And I said, look, I have every intention of seeing you again in person. So we need to make sure that this continues. And I said, we can get creative about ways to feel connected. We can watch movies and like talk on the phone while we're watching them together. This is the age of digital sex and sexting.

Like that is a thing that can happen. And so he kind of perked up once I kind of made all these suggestions, and we started doing them. So in that way, it feels a little bit like an old-fashioned relationship, whereas for the last few years, I've rarely talked on the phone with the people that I was dating. If you think about it, it's like a better creation story for a relationship than maybe otherwise. Yeah.

It certainly really kind of ups the romance because there's this really intense feeling of like wanting to see each other and wanting to be in each other's presence so badly. But you want to be better safe than sorry and just hope that everything is good so that when you come out on the other end of it, you can do it the way you want to do it. So we're really like anxiously awaiting, hopefully like a positive conclusion. Yeah, yeah. So when things are back to normal and you and him can have a regular date again, where will that date be? Oh, God.

I don't, I have no idea yet. I mean, if I may offer a suggestion. Yes. I would say it could be very romantic to go back to the place where it all began. Back at the cheese bar with Cheese Bae. Could be cute, consider it. Well, I do love cheese. There you go.

There you go. Once more, Cheese Bae has to stay. A lot of things were impacted. Like, I was supposed to be on a huge, like, 40-city Tinder live tour right now, and nope. To talk more about dating right now, I called up Lane Moore. Lane is the host of Tinder Live. It's this live comedy show where she broadcasts her own Tinder profile on this giant projection screen. And then audience members vote on whether she should swipe left or swipe right on profiles that come up.

Lane says the show is actually kind. She's not making fun of people, but she is looking for strange profiles. We're looking for like a white guy with cornrows whose name is Amen. Like that's who we talk to on Tinder Live. Like, yes. And a face tattoo that says mom with a penis or something. It's like what you would do with your friends, but like with professional comedians riffing on it.

Yeah. Lane has thought a lot about online dating, especially right now. When I started doing my live streaming shows with Tinder Live, they happened post-coronavirus. And so I was seeing people put things into their profiles that were like COVID and chill. And you're like, what? No, they're basically just like, oh, like I have my own apartment and I'm symptom free. And you're just

like, what are you? You can be asymptomatic though and still have it. No. So what you're saying is the bar has kind of been lowered. So there's definitely yeah. Now to be clear, Lane is not a licensed therapist or a mental health professional, but she has spent time thinking about and talking about and writing about online dating. And she herself has spent a lot of time online dating. The last Tinder live show that we did in New York, right before everything got shut down, there was a guy who came up and he seemed really cool. And we started talking like on Tinder. And then he just was kind of like flaky and in and out of messaging. And I was like, the audacity to ghost or like be flaky or kind of like, you know, in and out during a pandemic. What else are you doing?

So I asked Lane in all of her wisdom to help me take some listener questions about dating right now. Hi, my name is Namartha Narang and I'm currently living in Los Angeles. I have not been a very avid user of the dating apps such as Hinge. I have a particularly terrible habit of going on Hinge for a couple of days, connecting with some guys, having good conversations, and then forgetting to go on for at least a month or two. And then when I actually go back on to the platform and respond to these guys, they don't react too well. Because I'm already so bad at using these apps, I'm finding that during quarantine or the self-isolation period, I'm even worse for some reason. And I'm just wondering why this is the case or why this habit still remains intact, even though my living

situation or the situation around us has dramatically changed. So I'd love some insight on that. Thank you. Wow, that kind of was straight. I don't know. Like if I had a connection with somebody. How do you do it? Yeah, somebody who's like not checking an app. Like to me, that's like hearing, and I don't mean to diminish this

because this person's obviously stressed. But to me, that's like hearing like, how do I keep from having such a full life that I'm not even really worried about what people are responding to me? I want your life. I also feel like this is a time to just like trust your body, trust your gut, and trust your intuition. Like maybe the answer is if your intuition is I don't feel like being on these apps too much right now, that's okay. Right?

It's so funny because I do hear this from people a lot and I've experienced it myself too, where there's this idea that you have this assignment to make sure that you're chosen and make sure that you find someone before it's too late. And so we'd tell this person to just take some time off. And the other part of the question that I heard, the idea that it should be easier now is such a real thing. The idea that like, oh, we have more time now. We should be more productive. Everything's harder right now. We're not operating with like normal energy.

Like in a crisis, if a building is burning, you know, you're not going to be like, oh, well, now that's burning. We have a lot of time to like catch up. Like, no, you've got to deal with the burning building. So I just, I want to tell this person, you know, and anyone listening to not hold yourself to this idea that because you technically on paper have more time, that like there's more productivity or you can focus more like this. This isn't the same units of time we're used to. Time has actually shifted and we got to just get used to that.

Okay. This next question comes from Jacqueline. What do you recommend for someone who's looking to create a profile during this COVID pandemic period and salons and businesses are closed so one can't have a makeover done? Is it okay to do the best you can with what you have with items at home, such as box hair color, one's own makeup, and an iPhone. I would be curious as to your thoughts on this. Okay. Let me tell you something. The first thing I thought of was, Jacqueline, none of the dudes on dating apps are thinking about that right now at all. Not a single man has been like, oh no,

I don't look as hot as usual. Women are held to such a disgustingly higher standard that like now you have to maintain like untold levels of hotness in quarantine. Like 90% of the profiles I see on Tinder live are like men in the bathroom wearing a stain on it. And the mirror is dirty. So, and they're. So and they're not and they're not focused on like, should I really be cleaning my mirrors more? And yes, you should, Jake. But also this is a crisis. Like, um, the other thing I would say beyond that on like a deeper, you know, maybe sappier, but really genuine level is like, I don't know, maybe now is a good time to be like, this is what I actually look like, and she's pretty too.

She's beautiful also. Yeah. Third question from Chelsea Smith. Quote, I met a guy online at the beginning of quarantine. We have had three FaceTime dates, all longer than an hour, and text in between at a frequency that feels right to me. We have our fourth FaceTime date scheduled for later this week. He seems nice, and I'm enjoying his virtual company, but I don't know what to do next. at a frequency that feels right to me. We have our fourth FaceTime date scheduled for later this week.

He seems nice, and I'm enjoying his virtual company, but I don't know what to do next. How do we keep momentum if we can't meet each other in real life or have a shared experience or see if we have any physical chemistry? I think that video chatting, like, you can get a good idea of chemistry in video chatting, for sure. Obviously, it's not like pheromones and you can't smell them and all those, you know, weird animalistic things that are definitely real. But I think it's a good sign that you're talking with a regularity that feels good to you. I'm definitely answering this question from the lens of being really angry at the guy that I was talking to.

And being like, we weren't doing regular Skype dates. We were not talking at a consistency that felt healthy to me. I guess what I'm saying is all that rage aside, if everything about this feels comfortable and everything about it feels good and everything about it feels consistent and nothing about it feels like cagey or sketchy,

then I think that you could just ask him because he's probably thinking the same thing. It's entirely possible that he's thinking like, oh, how are we going to move through this? And who knows? Maybe he has an answer. I don't know. But I think it just ultimately comes down to, is it worth it to you? Yeah. Big picture question that it might be too soon to know the answer to. Do you think the dating that emerges from this time will just be more honest because you have to talk more, you have to get to the real more because there's really no distraction? Or will it become in this

weird way, incredibly performative? What do you think we end up with? Online dating moving towards the more good because of this or towards the bad real or fake i don't know the hopeful part of me the like romantic part of me really likes the idea that it'll make people more mindful of like how important it is to like actually get to know someone as a person and not just as you know a meaningless stranger in their phone who cares, that kind of thing. On the real though, I don't know that it will because, you know, some people go through a challenging thing and they come out differently and they appreciate things and a lot of people just kind of, you know, remain the same. And so, and I don't want to sound cynical about this, but I also don't want to paint a rosy picture and then have a bunch of people listening and being like, I haven't seen that.

So I want to kind of hold both parts of like, I have hope for that. But I also know that like, I've experienced it. I have several friends experiencing it where like, they're chatting with somebody online and they kind of expect this like added resonance to their relationship, you know, like this added depth and they're not seeing it. The one thing that I've been hearing from folks a lot in this moment that is just good advice for online dating or family stuff or friend stuff or whatever right now, it's just forgive yourself. Forgive yourself.

This is a hard time. You might not get it all right. Forgive yourself and make sure that bathroom mirror is clean before you take the selfie. That's it. Exactly. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. Lane Moore, thank you so much for your time.

Tell folks where they can find you on the internets. Yes. I am at HelloLaneMoore on Instagram and Twitter, and I'm doing all sorts of live streams and hopefully touring with Tinder Live when this is done. All right. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thanks again to Lane Moore. She also has a memoir out. It's called How to Be Alone. She wrote it before the pandemic hit. All right, a lot of people are trying to meet someone new right now, but a lot of other folks are thinking really, really hard about how to maintain existing relationships. We heard from a lot of you about this. Hello, poor diseased world. I'm Belinda from Swampscott, Massachusetts. I'm Chandler from Harwich, Massachusetts on the Cape of Cod.

Wait, I want to say where it's from. I didn't realize that he plays computer games and we've been together for three years now. So it's kind of funny because I've never seen the side of him before. We have a competition going about train ourselves to apologize less because we both do it a lot. For things that you shouldn't apologize for.

And I'm winning, winning, winning, winning today. No, no. We're just 1-1 right now. Oh, okay. I'm tied, tied, tied. Hey, Sam. This is Mark from Fresno, California. The biggest difference that I've noticed is how much of an introvert she is. So she's doing just fine at home. And I've always known that I'm like the president

of the extrovert club. I also found out that I breathe very heavily while I'm reading and I have music in while she's watching television. But what can I tell you? Even when you... I'm sorry, but you know, it's... 2-1. What? 2-1. Oh, yeah, I'll get you back though. He would say that he'd be happy for this quarantine to go on forever and see me and no other humans forever, I wouldn't quite say the same, but I am having a really lovely time spending an unlimited amount of time with him.

All right, we love you all, don't we? Most of them. To figure out how to make a current relationship work in the midst of the Rona, I called up Damona Hoffman. I am a certified dating and relationship coach, and I host a podcast called Dates and Mates, which is all about modern love and how we can navigate it. Damona is married with two kids, so she is living this. Damona says if you want to make sure that daily annoyances with your partner don't end up in a breakup, you have to have a plan and maybe also a schedule.

I recommend setting up an actual date night. There's so many things that you can do at home to still make it special. Maybe even something nostalgic that reminds you why you're together in the first place. Yeah. Have you and your partner tried a date night? And if so, what did y'all do? Give us some examples. We did. We played Boggle, which is my favorite word game. I'm a bit of a sapiosexual, so it's very hot for me to play Boggle. I know other people are like, ew, that's not a turn on. I love that. He beat me, as he always does, by like 10 points.

But it was still fun to just know that we were having that alone time together. I've also recommended doing sip and paint night or even just stargazing. Like there are a lot of apps that now, now our night skies, they're clearer than they've ever been in our lifetimes, essentially. When's the last time that you took a moment to go outside and actually look up at the stars? Get your little blanket, cuddle up, keep it cute. Yeah. Yeah. From what you've seen of how couples are handling this moment, is there one big thing everyone's kind of doing wrong that they should just stop right now? Oh, that's a great question. The biggest thing I

think that we're doing wrong is we're looking to our partner to be our everything. And this is actually something that I was seeing beforehand, but now it's amplified because we don't have those other support systems. So rather than looking at your partner as just your best friend and your intimate partner as well, try to find other avenues and other people in your support network that you can connect with virtually or like a distance hangout so that all of that pressure isn't on them to be everything to you at once. Yeah. Another question for you. Yes, Sam. I wonder a lot how fights work in quarantine, how arguments work in quarantine. Like couples have arguments

as part of the process, but usually if you have a knock down, drag out argument, you call your girlfriends and you meet them for drinks to talk it out, or you go for a long run to blow off the steam of that argument or like a lot of the recovery from a fight or from an argument that used to happen out in the real world it can't now so all of a sudden these couples are in solitude together and they have a fight and they still have to just like be together i don't know if this, like, how do you handle that? And does that change the way you should think about productive arguments with your partner? Well, the reality is that we are seeing an increase in domestic violence. And, you know, I don't want to be a downer, but it is a reality of the situation right now. A lot of people aren't dealing with it effectively. What I would love to see people do is to focus on listening

and understanding right now. It's really easy when you are in an argument to try to be heard and to impress your perspective on the other person. But especially right now, there are a lot of problems that do not have a solution, that will not be resolved by you making your point. And do something to shift your mindset and not ruminate on the issue that you were just having. It might just be folding the laundry, something that just gets your brain

thinking about something else. And then set a time that you and your partner can come back and have this discussion. So say, why don't we talk about this tonight after the kids go to bed or tomorrow after I've had a chance to talk to my therapist? And there are a lot of avenues for therapy right now that are available to you online. And even if you didn't have a therapist before, there's systems like BetterHelp that will connect you with a therapist. Use the tools that we have available so that you can be your best self in the relationship. Yeah. Speaking of parts of this conversation that are kind of downwards but still have to

be talked about, we have a listener who had a pretty serious question. She wishes to remain anonymous, but she wrote in about how she is hiding her high alcohol use from her husband right now. And she's wondering how she can address these kind of issues with her partner in an appropriate way, especially if the habit is something that is just, you know, unhealthy or dangerous, especially in a time like this. I'm really glad that you bring this up because a lot of people right now, even if they'm really glad that you bring this up because a lot of people right now, even if they don't have a history of alcoholism, a lot of people are turning to alcohol, drugs, even food can be a drug that you go to to help you cope. And it really can be a silent relationship killer. So in the case of this woman who's hiding

her alcoholism from her partner, if her partner is a safe person and is someone that she wants to remain in a relationship with, these are the exact kind of things that you need your partner to be your support system on. So I was saying earlier, we don't want your partner to have to be your everything, your best friend, your intimate partner, and your support system. But when you're dealing with something as serious as alcohol abuse and you're seeing that it's impacting your life negatively, that's exactly the time to go to your partner and just acknowledge what's going on. And the reality is she's probably not hiding it from her partner as well as she thinks

that she is. Oh, yeah. You probably already knew. Like, it's really hard to hide anything from someone you're living with 25-8 these days, you know? Yeah. Partners see. Partners see things. Right, right.

I always say to my listeners, just own the elephant in the room. She thinks she's hiding the problem, but really it's probably the elephant in the room. She thinks she's hiding the problem, but really it's probably the elephant in the room. And if you just shine a light on it so that everyone knows it's there, then you can actually talk about what's going on. I think that is advice that could work for anyone, whether they're single, dating, partnered, whether they proposed to their Netflix account last night. Don't ignore the elephants in the room. Right. That is just good advice.

Right. I love it. Damona, thank you so much for your words of wisdom. I know that our listeners will greatly appreciate it. I hope things stay well with you and your family through this weird, weird time. Thank you. Same to you, Sam. Thanks again to Damona Hoffman. You can catch more of her tips on dating and relationships on her podcast, Dates and Mates.

Before I let you go, one more love story. All right, friend, tell folks who you are. Oh, hi, I'm Lauren McGaughy. I'm a producer at NPR. Right now, Lauren is sheltering in place with her boyfriend and her dog. And recently, she and her boyfriend, they made the news. Well, we were doing what is now the great American pastime, which is taking a long walk through our neighborhood.

So we were just walking and kind of talking about how crazy our reality and our world had just like completely been upended. But how it felt like in our little house, in our little bubble that we had built together, it felt like everything made sense and still fit and felt like a safe space. But yeah, then Sam just kind of looked at me and kind of got like a little like hard eyes emoji. And he was just like, I didn't plan this at all. But and then he like got down on one knee and said, will you marry me? Obviously, I said yes. But then we like walked like 10 feet.

And I guess it just everything feels surreal right now. So I was just like, did that really just happen? Did you just propose to me? And he's like, oh, I'll just do it again. And like got back down on'll just do it again. I'm like, got back down on one knee and proposed again. So he did it twice. Said yes twice. Oh my goodness. I'm not even going to ask you how the wedding planning is going because that sounds like the most stressful thing in the midst of a pandemic. But I am going to ask if you're going to have a social distance theme at the wedding, like all the bridesmaids

and groomsmen wearing matching masks. That could be cute. Maybe. So we have discussed the wedding to the extent that we've decided that we'll serve pizza. Nice. I think at this point, we're okay with waiting long enough that we can all kind of hug and not social distance and get down on the dance floor again. I don't think I would make my bridesmaids be matching, though. You are a good bride. Thank you, Lauren Magaki. I look forward to, once this is all said and done, being back at NPR DC for a visit and walking by your desks for snacks.

Yeah, there's a lot there. What a lovely way to end this love episode. Lauren, I'm wishing you both the best. Thanks again to all the other folks you heard in this love episode. Lauren, I'm wishing you both the best. Thanks again to all the other folks you heard in this episode. And to you, dear listener, whether you're in a relationship or looking for love

or loving yourself right now, be good to yourselves. All right, this episode was produced by Anjali Sastry and edited by Jordana Hochman. If you're listening to this podcast and loving it, and I hope you are,

follow the It's Been a Minute podcast page on Spotify. And if you listen to Apple podcast, leave us a review there, pretty please. It helps other folks find the show. I'm Sam Sanders. I say this with love. Talk soon. One of the many ways the coronavirus pandemic has changed the world is that it has greatly limited the choices we get to make every day.

It gives you a greater recognition of what you really have in your control and what things you really don't have as much control over. This week on Hidden Brain from NPR. This message comes from Grammarly. 89% of business leaders say AI is a top priority. The right choice is crucial, which is why teams at one-third of Fortune 500 companies use Grammarly. With top-tier security credentials

and 15 years of experience in responsible AI, Grammarly isn't just another AI communication assistant. It's how companies like yours increase productivity while keeping data protected and private. See why 70,000 teams trust Grammarly at grammarly.com slash enterprise. Consider this is a daily news podcast and lately the news is about a big question. How much can one guy change? They want change. What would change look like for energy? Drill, baby, drill. Schools? Take the Department of Education, close it.

Healthcare? Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. On Consider This, the afternoon news podcast from NPR. In college, Mustafa Suleiman started a helpline for young British Muslims. People were just looking to find support in a language that made sense to them. Today, he's CEO of Microsoft AI, where he's building digital helpers. Think of

me as your superpower in your pocket. Building the future of AI. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.