A local look at national dating trends, including “the talk” and pre-dating via phone calls and Zoom.

With words like “social distancing,” “isolation” and “quarantine” becoming a regular part of everyone’s vocabulary, it may be natural to assume that dating or physical intimacy (with someone outside of your household) may have been one of the first sacrifices of societal norms during the pandemic. But you’d be wrong – thanks to the internet. More specifically, thanks to dating apps like Bumble, Tinder, OkCupid and others.

The applications have always run in the background for the lives of many who are looking to date around or find companionship. According to a Pew Research Center article titled “The virtues and downsides of online dating,” published on Feb. 6, 2020 (before shelter-in-place took effect in Monterey County), three out of 10 U.S. adults at some point had used an online dating app. Now as health restrictions have corralled lonely hearts to their households, with few opportunities to meet new people, these technologies are one of the few ways that allows a relatively safe happenstance (sort of) interaction with strangers.

But during a pandemic, does online dating – or dating at all – remain popular?

The short answer is yes, people are still dating, and combined with social distancing, it’s giving rise to new dating trends. According to some local singles, some may even stick to app-based dating as their primary way of dating after the pandemic. Andrew, LaShounna and Elle, whose identities have been obscured at their request to protect their privacy, spoke to the Weekly about their experiences with online dating during the pandemic and their take on current dating trends.

Overall, app-based dating during the pandemic is giving rise to the slow death of hookup culture. There’s an irony there, because it was popular apps like Bumble and Tinder that popularized finding partners for these sorts of quick physical interactions.

For Elle, that’s exactly the reason she began using dating apps, before the pandemic and after a longer-term relationship didn’t pan out. “After spending so much time with one significant other, I knew I wanted to be more anonymous and sexually explorative,” the 27-year-old says. “I used it for meeting people, and finding something more casual.”

But now, Elle says she finds herself using dating apps to find a more meaningful connection. This change of heart in what she’s looking for wasn’t necessarily spurred by the pandemic, but it has helped her whittle down her options. “I would say it’s not only easier to build trust dating in the pandemic, it’s even easier not to pursue jumping into meeting someone immediately. [Apps] help filter those things out,” she says.

“It’s not only easier to build trust during the pandemic, it’s easier not to pursue jumping into meeting someone immediately.”

There is some independent survey data to back up Elle’s observations. Dating services OkCupid and Bumble recorded an increase in deeper, more meaningful conversations, a stark contrast to years of communication reflecting a trend in the opposite direction. According to data collected by OkCupid in the last weeks of March and early days of April, they saw a 5-percent increase of users looking for long-term relationships and a 20-percent decrease in users looking for hookups.

It’s called “slow dating.” Jemma Ahmed, head of insights at Bumble, comments in a blog that due to the limitations of traveling and real health risks of the pandemic, “many daters have used quarantine to think critically about what they want in a relationship.”

But among the obvious questions about dating expectations and next steps in relationships, there is a new dimension to having “the talk” – not about exclusivity or about long-term relationship hopes or the birds and the bees, but simply about seeing each other in-person during a pandemic when public health guidance advises otherwise.

Bumble calls it the “Covid conversation.” Andrew, a 43-year-old single father who has been on and off of dating sites, says he likes to bring up the topic casually. It’s a way to get a sense of how the other person feels about the pandemic in general. “I tend to keep it light to see how people respond,” Andrew says. “If they’re taking precautions, I’ll feel safer. But if they tell me it’s a bullshit conspiracy, that automatically filters people out for me.”

Bumble echoes that sentiment about the Covid conversation, and advises using tactics like Andrew’s to weigh the risks of an in-person meeting, if the relationship gets to that level.

Having the “Covid conversation” has also given rise to pre-dating, phone calls or video calls before taking the leap to dating in real life. LaShounna, a 43-year-old esthetician, is on board with this trend for more communication between an app introduction and an in-person meeting.

That’s largely because prior to Covid, she was subjected to catfishing (catfishing involves a would-be suitor using someone else’s pictures or biographical information, sometimes with ill intent) online once before. “With online dating, you only know what they say until you meet them in-person,” she says. “If someone doesn’t want to FaceTime with me, or keeps rescheduling, that’s a huge red flag.”

The desire for a video or phone meeting applied for LaShounna pre-pandemic. For people like Andrew, it’s new but something he likes – and it gives him the chance to get rid of the first-date jitters. Being able to see someone on video helps establish a baseline of trust, he says. “I rarely used [video] before. Now I feel like there is a push to video. And if you’re not feeling each other on a 10-minute video chat, you don’t have to continue. You can just leave,” he adds.

While LaShounna and Andrew don’t notice a drastic change in their dating life, Elle says she prefers this way of “slow dating.” With apps, she finds that reading a profile reveals more information about a stranger than any chance encounter ever could. The people she’s met have been more transparent about what they do and not want.

“We live in such a small, well-connected community. Before the pandemic, you had dating apps or you’d rely on your friends to set you up – that’s a vetting system in itself,” she says. “I think I would continue even when a somewhat normal life returns.”