Dating apps are exploding on the block – not just a way to stay, but also simple interaction at a time when the coronavirus inflicts loneliness on millions.
Rodrigo, 18, had never considered joining a dating app until the months of blocking boredom finally forced his hand.
“At the beginning, we told ourselves that the crisis would pass, that we just needed to have a little patience. But when the temporary becomes permanent, we need to try new things,” he said.
With school almost always online and limited options for hanging out with friends, “I had a feeling I was spending my whole life with my parents.”
Rodrigo now visits dating apps every day. More than just chasing the thrill of a date, they have become a place to just go out.
He befriended four people his age through apps and chatted with them daily – a way to “relieve stress and frustration” from the pandemic, he says.
“That’s all we have left,” he sighs, especially since Portugal fell back into the blockade last month.
Match, the group that includes several important apps, like Tinder, Hinge and Meetic, says it added more than one million users in the last quarter of 2020, an increase of about 12 percent to about 11 million worldwide.
“It sounds like a cliché, but the apps really stopped me from sinking,” said Sebastien, a 19-year-old French student.
“When we can’t go to college, and the bars, restaurants and cinemas are all closed, we spend whole days on our own, cooking. It’s horrible, ”he said.
– Watching yourself date –
Exchanges begin with text before moving on to video chats – a feature that dating apps have been increasingly focused on since the pandemic ruled out the usual next stage of a physical encounter.
Martha, a 41-year-old Londoner, found Zoom dating a little hard, even if it saves her from worrying about perfume.
“The biggest challenge I found with Zoom dating … was how strange it is to see yourself talking and laughing,” she said.
She suspects that a lot of people feel like her – that the pandemic can really be an opportunity to focus on finding Mr. or Mrs. Right “, but somehow it’s harder to motivate myself when I don’t know when I’ll meet them in person, when I can have a flirt and a kiss. “
Martha ended up meeting someone. She is not sure if it will last, but at least it provided a little companionship during the dark winter months of Britain’s prolonged confinement.
Others were successful overnight.
Ana, 31, a Spaniard from Valladolid, took less than 24 hours to find someone on Tinder and they have remained a couple ever since.
“Towards the end of 2020, I convinced myself to try for a few days, while swearing that if the conversations made me uncomfortable or if I didn’t find a shoe that would suit me, I would drop it.” she said.
Across the world, in Tokyo, Ambroise, 32, a translator, has not been so lucky so far.
Not wanting to risk meeting in person, she says most of her connections have failed after a while, even though Tinder has provided an outlet when her morale sinks.
“I really have no hope (of finding love) online … but no hope in real life,” she said, adding that when I leave the house “I am wearing a mask and often comfortable clothes with no makeup on … you know, pandemic fashion! “
kaf-adm / er / spm