Dating apps are booming in lockdown – no longer just a way to connect, but simple interaction at a time when the coronavirus is causing millions of loneliness.
Rodrigo, 18, had never considered joining a dating app until months of lockdown boredom finally forced his hand.
“In the beginning, we told ourselves that the crisis will be over, that we just have to be a little patient. But when temporary becomes permanent, you have to try new things,” he said.
Because the school was mostly online and there were limited opportunities to go out with friends, “I felt like I was spending my whole life with my parents.”
Rodrigo now visits dating apps every day. More than just chasing the thrill of a hook-up, they’ve become a place to just hang out.
He has made friends with four people his age through the apps and chats with them daily – a way to “ease the stress and frustration of the pandemic,” he says.
“It’s all we have left,” he sighs, especially since Portugal was closed again last month.
Match, the group of several leading apps such as Tinder, Hinge and Meetic, says it added more than a 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 kept me from sinking,” said Sebastien, a 19-year-old student in France.
“When we can’t go to college and the bars, restaurants and movie theaters are all closed, we spend whole days stewing alone. It’s awful,” he said.
– Watching yourself date –
Exchanges start with text before moving on to video chats – a feature dating apps have increasingly focused on since the pandemic ruled out the usual next step of a physical date.
Martha, a 41-year-old Londoner, thinks dating Zoom is a bit of a mess, even though she doesn’t have to worry 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 a lot of people felt like her – that the pandemic might just be an opportunity to focus on meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right, ‘but somehow it’s harder to motivate myself when I don’t know when i will meet them in person, when i can have a flirt and a hug. “
Martha did eventually meet someone. She’s not sure it will last, but at least it has provided a bit of company during the dark winter months of the extensive UK lockdown.
Others have been successful overnight.
Ana, 31, a Spaniard from Valladolid, took less than 24 hours to find someone on Tinder and they’ve stayed a few ever since.
“By the end of 2020, I convinced myself to give it a try for a few days, vowing that if the talks made me feel uncomfortable, or if I didn’t find a shoe that fits, I would drop it,” she said.
Across the world in Tokyo, 32-year-old Ambroise, a translator, hasn’t been so lucky so far.
Not wanting to risk meeting in person, she says most of her connections have fallen out after a while, even if Tinder has provided an outlet when her morale drops.
“I don’t really have any hope (of finding love) online… but no hope at all in real life,” she said, adding that when she leaves the house “I wear a mask and often wear comfortable clothes with no makeup. -up … you know, pandemic fashion! “
kaf-adm / er / spm