Au revoir, awkward Tinder date. Bonjour, awkward Zoom date.
That’s the nouveau reality for lonely singles in the age of coronavirus. The pandemic isn’t stopping people from swiping — they’re just doing it more creatively, and from a safe distance.
Sometimes, you gotta bumble through it
Let’s be honest: First dates are tough even when you can sit closer than 6 feet away from your match.
Bumble is promoting video chats as virtual icebreakers, and Tinder made its paid Passport feature free for everyone — it lets you swipe around the world to find new connections outside of your sad self-quarantine bubble.
There’s even a new app tailor-made for these times: OKZoomer (golf clap for the name) was created for college students who want to crush on people from a social distance.
So you’re ready to take things past 1st base…
…don’t sweat. The… um, New York City government… has you covered. Twitter got hot and bothered over NYC’s guide to safe corona-copulation (TL;DR: when in doubt, rub one out, OR get down with your roommate, but DEFINITELY NO rimming!).
Other options for adventurous types: MIT Tech Review says high-tech sex toys and VR strip clubs are all on the rise. Not to mention corona-fetish content. (We’re not into kink-shaming, but… what???)
Sex workers are pivoting, too
Many of them are raising money to support each other — the pandemic has dealt a major blow to their livelihoods.
Some are moving online. But the ones who don’t already have a virtual presence are running into a classic business problem: It’s hard to challenge the well-established incumbents.