Are Singles in Quarantine “Too Late” For Love?
A pleading voice came on Savage Lovecast last week. It belonged to a woman in her mid-twenties who said, “Quarantine is making me feel so alone… seeing others with their significant others… it feels like I’ve run out of time and I’m not gonna find a person to spend my life with, and it’s just over for me.”
The question struck me because of course I can empathize with this woman. Whether it’s the “post your first photo as a couple” challenge or simply seeing your friends staying busy with their chosen ones, it can feel like a direct hit that amplifies the fact that you want that, you don’t have that, and now with your future up in the air, like you’re just too late to ever get it.
The most important thing to remember is YOU ARE NOT ALONE. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if within the next year, people who previously were singling and mingling are suddenly “ready for a relationship.”
As anyone who read my last couple of posts knows, I have turned to online dating as an outlet for sexual tension, sure… but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it’s more than that. For me, it’s been a window into the future, a way to meet people I’d never meet otherwise… a reason for hope.
I recently finished reading “The Tattooist Of Auschwitz” and in it, a Jewish prisoner reflects on life before the Nazi invasion- the simple plans that he and his family had about their futures, and how bizarre it was that everything they envisioned came to a screeching halt. Through the horror he endured, though, he fell in love with a woman at the concentration camp. They survived, found each other after the war and started new lives together.
Lest we forget, if you’re reading this post (thank you thank you thank you) you are more fortunate than a lot of people who have been and effected by this virus, as am I. These weeks, months, and god forbid years that we will be practicing social distancing are tough, (only tougher due to the idiotic lunatic we have failing at running the country) but we really have so much to be thankful for.
If someone can find love in the midst of Nazi Germany, then we can find love under the circumstances we’re in now.
As much as I throw around the term “end-days” in a sarcastic, fatalistic manner, the somber reality is that yes; life as we knew it is dead and gone… but our futures don’t have to be. Life will proceed and eventually a new reality will take shape. It might not be the future that we dreamed about but now we get to shape our lives from scratch and when we do that, love can still win.
Besides, how romantic would it be to tell your grandkids, “We got to know each other in a time of crisis, chatting for months before ever meeting in person.” I mean, that’s definitely the end to a cheesy romance movie I’d watch.
