Today, Explained - Cupid-19

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

The pandemic hasn’t stopped Americans from dating, hooking up, or tying the knot. In fact, lockdown has been helping people get down. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. it's today explained i'm sean ramis for him and over the past six months now of everyone being in some state of quarantine or lockdown we've talked a lot about how that's affecting our society, our economy, our cities, our buildings,

our relationships, our families, our psyches, but we haven't talked about one essential component, and that is our love lives. But Today Explained reporter-producer Halima Shah has been focused on just that thing for the past few weeks. Halima, what have you discovered? Well, COVID-19 has basically made an already awkward game more awkward. And there is a lot of sadness when it comes to relationships during the pandemic. For example, a lot of people who might have been in the early stages of a relationship are finding that it's fizzling out. And a lot of people who were considering divorce

or maybe splitting up are basically having to cohabit with the people they were planning on leaving. That's rough. But, and there's a big but here. Oh, good. Yeah, there's a silver lining. I was about to cry. We don't want people to cry anymore.

We make them cry plenty on this show. And the silver lining in this case is that some people are finding that the pandemic and the lockdown is helping them advance their relationships. So are we going to hear from some couples or what? We are going to hear from some couples. We're going to hear from young people living in cities who are in their 20s and 30s. And we're also going to hear from people who are facilitating these relationships. We're going to hear from matchmakers of sorts. Like Cupid? We're going to hear from the digital version of Cupid. We are going to hear from one of the leaders of Bumble. Cool. All right. Where do we begin?

We begin with 24-year-old Ciara. I'm from Chicago. I live in D.C. I identify as queer. I'm Black. I'm a woman. I like scary movies. And I knit. I asked her if that's what her Tinder profile said.

If you wanted, I could probably pull up exactly what it said. Ciara and I met at a park, by the way. Reporting, like dating during a pandemic, often takes place outdoors and six feet apart. Okay, here it is. So my profile says, always aiming to find the perfect first date with like the rock on hands. Big nerd and huge extrovert. I love meeting new people and trying new things more than anything. Shy city, tall.

Sierra was on Tinder before the pandemic started, and she has a pretty good response rate. The people she likes tend to like her back. But after the pandemic started, Sierra was browsing Tinder, and she swiped right on one woman who she wasn't sure would be a match. Rachel. She also probably still has her Tinder up. Here it is. Ooh. Just, like, excellent pictures of her.

Oh, my God. That's very intimidating. It's incredibly intimidating, and that's the bio. Her style, I would say, is, like, simple, upscale, kind of chic. She has a couple of photos in swimsuits. She has a few photos in suit suits. She looks like a model. But yeah, I remember just being like, oh, wow, that's not going to happen.

But like, she's really hot. And then swiping and we instant matched. And I was like, oh! There was one problem, though. Sierra and Rachel from Tinder matched in March, just as Washington, D.C. shut down because of the pandemic. On top of that, Sierra lives in a group house with five other roommates who all agreed to strict social distancing rules. We have to wear a mask whenever we're out of the house. For the first month of quarantine, we were only going on like night walks. That's the only time we were leaving the house was like to go to the grocery

store and to go on night walks as a group. Can't go in anyone else's home. It was all very just like precautionary. And because I was living in a group house where I wasn't only in charge of my own health, I didn't feel comfortable like breaking that since it was agreed upon. So I asked Sierra what she was looking for on Tinder. Someone to secretly break the rules with? A pen pal? Yeah, like a hot, romantic-ish pen pal that would end at the end of quarantine. I had just gotten out of a relationship in November, and I was very like, it is finally time for me, Sierra,

to be intentional about, like, being by myself. So I was not trying to start dating anybody. I had, like, I was swiping on Tinder a lot because I was bored. And I was like, oh, I'll just, like, you know, snatch up a few quarantine booze, like, have people to talk to. There are plenty of people in their 20s who will tell you the same thing. Being in lockdown is boring, especially if you're single. That's Nikki DelZanaro's experience.

She lives halfway across the country in Chicago with one roommate. Before COVID and still through COVID, I have been single. I have been on the apps every once in a while intermittently, but I never stay on them for too long because I don't love them. So then I sort of just try to meet people who are friends of friends or doing activities that I like to do in the wild. Her natural habitats are bars, baseball games, comedy shows, and all of them are off the table in the COVID era. So to date while social distancing in 2020, Nikki found herself connecting with the men of 2019.

Yes, yes. There have only been two guys I've hooked up with this year, and they were both people that I met in the fall. But Nikki is being cautious, and not just because of COVID-19. What we've been seeing in memes and in social media for the last few months is that the men who come out of the woodwork from 2019, they don't have great intentions, you know? They're just trying to see if you'll break quarantine for them because they're just like, fuck boys

who can't meet anybody new. So they're going through the old books. That said, Nikki's seen an upside to dating during COVID-19. The pandemic kind of acts like a filter. I'm weeding out people who aren't taking this seriously, like who aren't wearing masks, who are traveling all over the place and hanging out in large crowds. And I'm like, if you don't take this seriously,

if we don't have a chat about when you were tested or what your exposure looked like, then you can't break quarantine with me. The filter has kind of worked for Nikki. The first guy she saw during quarantine was open about where he went, his roommate's activity, and he discussed getting tested. In the case of another guy on social media, he had been, like, talking shit about Trump's response to COVID. And I was like, OK, he must be taking it seriously. And then he told me he lived with his grandparents and had been tested, like, a week prior. And this brings us to the reason a lot of people are dating during a pandemic. Sex. One survey found that more than half of young adults in Chicago broke quarantine to have a sexual encounter.

Same with a quarter of people in L.A. and nearly a fifth in New York. Public health departments know this. And since kissing through a mask or sex without breathing seem impossible, local health departments are releasing guidelines for safe sex during COVID-19. Common advice is your safest sex partner is yourself. Your next safest is someone who lives with you. And if you want sex with someone outside of your household,

have as few partners as possible. Also, discuss COVID-19 as you would any other safe sex topics. And do it beforehand. For Nikki, taking those precautions feels like the smartest way to continue dating right now. You are trying your best to have a life that you enjoy, but also think of others. So maybe that's like just my personal justification, but I think it has been healthy for me to find some middle ground. Back in D.C., people like Sierra, who live in big group houses, have to take extra caution if they want to go out with anyone during the pandemic. She and Rachel from Tinder were texting back and forth and seeing each other virtually.

The two wanted to be more than pandemic pen pals, but Sierra had some strict house rules to consider. So for the first in-person date, they sat six feet apart at a park near Georgetown University. It was Georgetown's graduation day, which I found out later on our date that she had graduated a couple hours before our date. I think we both brought like beers and like traded. And this was back when I was still like sanitizing every single thing. So we just, yeah, we just sat in a park and talked for three hours. Sierra didn't tell her housemates about her date. Or the next one.

Or the one after that. But she says those dates were all socially distant. It reminds me of, like, courtship. My parents, when they met, were, like, in this very, like, devout Christian church. And you weren't allowed to date. You courted. And so you didn't touch each other. So then I asked Sierra the obvious question. When did you two finally touch?

It was here. It was in Malcolm X Park. It's a huge park. There's like an upstairs and a downstairs. So like a flat part top and then stairs that lead down to kind of like hill-like areas where people have picnics. We both brought blankets and wine and food and just kind of like sat and talked. We got quite drunk in the park, which was nice, because it was a beautiful day. It was Drum Circle Sunday. So, you know, we could like hear the drum.

It was very like romantic for like a city and like I guess like black queer romance, while an African drumbeat circle is happening up top. She was being super careful around me because she didn't want me to get in trouble with my roommates. But, I hope my roommates don't hear this. I was sitting next to her and I like had my legs over her legs.

We just kind of like gently brushed legs and touched each other's hands. And I wasn't really allowed to touch anybody else. So like, it was such a huge deal. And just like that, Sierra and Rachel from Tinder broke the COVID rules. It didn't go any further that day. And right after they touched, Sierra used her hand sanitizer. But the date went well. Sierra and Rachel from Tinder wanted to keep seeing each other and eventually become intimate.

So, Sierra and her housemates set up new travel and sex rules. The sex rules were once you have a sexual encounter, like you wear a mask in the house for two weeks and you get tested. You kind of quarantine yourself. You just wear a mask. You have your own set of dishes. It can only be one person. So, it was a very like choose carefully type of situation. So, Sierra kept seeing Rachel from Tinder. They both got tested for COVID-19. They stayed home as much as possible and they only met at Rachel's place

because she lived alone. Wait, so Halima, is this just like a booty call between Sierra and Rachel? What happens to their relationship? You will find out what happens to their relationship after the break. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family.

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Is it time to hear from Cupid herself? Yeah, it's time to hear from multiple Cupids, actually. Because for months now, states across the country have ordered people to social distance. And if you're trying to date, those rules are going to make it really challenging to meet anyone in person. So this is where the digital matchmakers come in. Even though people are staying home, they're still looking for love. Since the pandemic began, dating apps have seen an uptick in use. Bumble has seen a 26% increase in messages. Now on Tinder, there's been an increase in the number of conversations that are taking

place. Hinge has also seen an uptick as much as 30% increase in messages in March. Dating apps like Bumble and The League are seeing an increase in activity as people stay home to practice physical distancing. Apps are adapting to the new normal of dating. Bumble's vice president of strategy, Breethi Joshi, said the app rolled out new features to help users stay safe during the pandemic.

We launched a feature called the virtual dating badge. And, you know, what they're able to do basically is use that badge to not only indicate, hey, I am comfortable going on a virtual date, a socially distanced date, a socially distanced date with a mask on, but then they're also able to filter based off of their preferences.

And so they can find other users who are kind of in the same risk tolerance, if you will, as they are, just so that everyone can feel safe and comfortable. It's a great time to own a dating app. Match Group, which owns Match, Tinder, and OkCupid, recently released its second quarter earnings report. It shows more people are using the app since COVID-19 started. We actually saw an increase to nearly 70 percent in voice calls and video chats right around the time that COVID was declared a national emergency back in March to the first week of May. We also saw that these calls were

actually on average 30 minutes long, which if you think about it, that's a pretty decent first virtual date. Breethi sees it as a sign that users are interested in more than messaging. She says they want to be more vulnerable with each other, talk for a longer period before meeting. But while COVID-19 is slowing some relationships down, it's speeding others up. Josh and I were together. I should know this. Take, for example, Josh and JC. We started dating in, what, 2010? And we were engaged in 2019? But did we have a date set? Maybe in our heads, we did. Yeah, I don't think we discussed it really outside of, hey, we're engaged. Now what? Josh and JC talked to me about their amorphous

wedding plans from their home in Madison, Wisconsin, where JC works at a public radio station that offers health insurance, and where Josh is transitioning out of a career in academia, which does not come with health insurance. I was already living a kind of precarious life in academia and bouncing around from a few different institutions. And I got really sick, really randomly. And it was pneumonia. But like for about four or five days, I couldn't get out of bed, and it was really scary. That was in mid-November. A few months later, the U.S. started seeing its first cases of community spread of COVID-19. the pandemic kind of became this real thing. I had already had a taste of what life, A, without health insurance would be like,

but then also B, without the sort of contractual protections you get when someone is like your emergency contact or go-to person or like whatever, someone you can put in your will. So that was like one prompt, I think. I think our combined experiences in the fall with the pneumonia and hearing that it was a respiratory thing was like hey we don't really want to fuck with this being at you know urgent care with josh not being sure if they were going to let me go back with him

at times that i didn't have you know the same rights as, you know, people who are married. I am your emergency contact, but that if anything had happened in an emergency room, we weren't sure if they would even be in touch with me. So in January, the two got a marriage license. And in March, a day before the marriage license expired, JC and Josh got married at a courthouse in New York. We wore like nicest version of whatever we had packed. Like probably what I was going to wear to my interview is what I wore. I wore a pair of olive colored pleated pants and a turtleneck.

And the wedding went something like this. Do you, Joshua, take this woman to be your wife? Yeah, I do. Blah, blah, blah. And you, JC, do you do the same thing? Yeah, I do. Okay, you're done. Bye-bye. It was rushed, but it was still really charming and weird and whimsical, which actually added

to some of the romantic part of it. COVID really did force the hand of a lot of people, either in really pushing up their timeline and getting married sooner rather than later, or for people who have had to stop their planning altogether because so much is up in the air. It's just a weird time. A weird, frustrating, and sometimes romantic time, especially for people like Ciara and Rachel from Tinder. They're still seeing each other five months after they both swiped right. We are dating. She's my girlfriend.

And it was wild to me that I fully created and fostered a relationship. We didn't even hang out in person for two months. And we didn't touch for three months. Ciara thinks the pandemic created a unique set of circumstances that brought the two together. I mean, like, we're both, like, LGBT. And so we were going to a lot of the same bars. And we're both really tall people. And we're both Black women.

And both of us always say, like, it's wild that I never met you out. We've even date-stamped certain days where we knew we were both at the same bar. And, like, we probably were there within 15 minutes of each other and just never ran into each other or saw each other. I asked if they dropped the L-bomb yet. We have said the L-word. Because I love her. And we both agreed that, like, we probably wouldn't have dated

or even spent, like, maybe more spent maybe more than one or two dates or hookups with each other had we not had to get to know each other for so long. Because I'm a very sex-positive person, I don't know why taking that aspect out fostered such an interesting relationship with each other and a good relationship, but it did. So I think I learned a little bit more about, like, slowing down with somebody

and, like, trying to delve really deep into, like, who they are as a person. I mean, I'm very in love, and I wasn't expecting it. So that's kind of fun. When we set out to talk about love in the age of COVID-19, we asked our listeners to share their stories. And we got a ton of messages, probably more than the show's ever seen. And it confirmed a suspicion that a lot of us here had,

that even though so much of our lives have been put on hold in 2020, love still finds a way. Be it a spouse, a new boo, or a pandemic pen pal. And if you're not trying to lock it down in lockdown, there's always the fuckboy from 2019. Halima Shah. She's a reporter and a producer at Today Explained.

Her story was edited by Jillian Weinberger and Afim Shapiro is the show's engineer. The rest of the Today Explained team includes Amna Alsadi, Muj Zaydi, and Noam Hassenfeld, who contributes music to Extra Help this week from Bird Pinkerton and Cecilia Lay. And major developments this week. Will Reed joined the team. Will was once our intern, and now he's straight up producing the show. We're so glad you're back, Will. And no big deal, Golda Arthur joined our team this week to run the show. We are most stoked to have you, Golda.

Thanks for joining. Liz Kelly Nelson is still Vox's editorial director of podcasts, and we still use a lot of the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinders music. Sincere thanks to all of you who generously, and in some cases very candidly, shared your stories of lockdown love. We laughed, we cried, we swooed. We're thinking about a spinoff, To Date Explained, Two Dates Explained. We'll let you know. In the meantime, Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.