Covid lockdown has put paid to office romances – Susan Morrison

With the rise of home-working during the coronavirus pandemic, young people haven’t been able to sneak off to the store room for some ‘stocktaking’, laments Susan Morrison.

The rise of home-working during Covid pandemic has robbed young people of access to the breeding ground of the next generation that is the office

THEy have a date night, she told me. Even during lockdown, they get dressed up and pretend the kitchen is a restaurant and have a candlelit dinner and hold hands to recreate their first romantic encounters.

Did we have a date night, she asked? No, I said, quite firmly. For one thing, we’ve still got kids kicking about. And second, my dear Yorkshire husband cannot countenance candles at the dinner table when the electric lights are functioning perfectly well.

He is suspicious of such arrangements, even in restaurants. He believes they use them to disguise what’s in the food. One can never be too careful.

As he once pointed out to me, “I genuinely do have a food allergy.” Yes, I said, bananas, a food notoriously hard to disguise, particularly in a fine dining experience.

He’s not too keen on gazing into each other’s eyes over dinner, either, not when knives are being deployed.

Back when we met, I suspect my husband’s perfect date would have been a Little Chef, which then boasted excellent fluorescent lighting, plastic cutlery and little in the way of fresh fruit, particularly bananas.

Recreating the early flush of romantic dating is a bit of a waste of time for us. We never had a date. Like many people in the last century, before online dating and swiping, we met at work.

We were assistant managers in the ABC Cinema on Lothian Road. Our fiery passions ignited when our eyes locked as we counted the Butterkist for stocktaking. He still says I put him off his count. We all met at work. I left the cinema and joined a large telecoms company with the word British in the title. That office ran on rumour, gossip and drama. Occasionally, we did some work. Tell you what, though, the share price was at an all-time high.

We were on constant alert for the giveaway signs of a budding romance, or even better, the smoke signals rising from the early days of a torrid affair. We were better than MI5.

We knew those moments when it was advisable to knock on the photocopy room door.

One glance at a new tie and we knew he’d been to see her in Leeds again. Those lingering glances in the cafeteria were spotted, catalogued and dissected with the intensity of panda breeders. Will they, or won’t they?

And here we have the twin horns of a dilemma. Lockdown has sealed those breeding grounds of the next generation, the offices. Young people just aren’t getting the chance to smoulder over the Powerpoint presentations or burst a bag of Butterkist in a moment of stolen passion. No wonder the birth rate is falling.

And what shall I do about date night? Lure him into the cupboard and recreate our early excitement by counting coats? Just not the same, is it?

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