Dating While Social Distancing

[TerenceGh]

In case dating wasn’t difficult enough, our social lives were upended by the COVID-19 epidemic. Ideally, online dating should lead to meeting up in real life. However, sometimes the responsible thing to do is to stay home, and that created quite a dilemma for dating apps. Fairytrail(Opens in a new window), a dating app for connecting via shared travel destination dreams, saw an bittersweet increase in use. Similarly, Zoosk's Great Dates feature lets couples virtually tour exciting locales safely at home.

The most straightforward virtual dating solution is video chatting, which lets you at least see each other face to face instead of just texting. Bumble, Clover, eharmony, Hinge, Match, Plenty of Fish, and Tinder all offer video chat. Apps with more specific target audiences are also adopting this feature, including the mobile-only Muslim dating app Muzmatch(Opens in a new window). Snack(Opens in a new window) introduces TikTok-style video functionality to dating profiles.

Even apps without video chat acknowledge the crisis in their own ways. OkCupid added personality questions about how you’re coping with the pandemic. Facebook Dating users can choose to use other Facebook communications apps, such as Messenger or the experimental Tuned and Sparked, apps specifically for quarantined couples and speed dating, respectively. Kippo created an entire online shared social space, a "metaverse," where matches can connect and play games while communicating over audio chat.

[Faride]

I want to hope that I will not have problems with distancing and with the covid restrictions that I have seen in 2020. But I made small preparations to be on top. I have a profile on the site for moms looking for sex. I can use the filter to see who lives near me and have real dates under any circumstances.