How our love lives have been affected during the pandemic
The social distancing measures, paired with a fair share of self-isolation, is enough to drive anyone a little crazy.
It’s easy to reminisce of a pre-pandemic time - making friendly small-talk with your coworkers in the office. Let’s not forget about going out for drinks on Friday nights with them, which seems like decades ago nowadays.
There’s also the toll Covid took on our relationships, and we’re not just talking about family and friends either. Whether you’ve been on temporary leave from your flirting game, or began struggling to keep things together with your long-term partner, there’s no denying that unfamiliar shift our love lives underwent.
You might find this quite surprising, but the pandemic hasn’t been all doom and gloom for our romantic relationships. In fact, the ways it’s affected our love life is anything but predictable.
Singles & Flirtationships
Being perpetually single at times of a worldwide pandemic can make even the biggest playboys and femme fatales lonely. Even then, it seems like it’s harder to disregard their romantic standards than it is to fight loneliness.
A recent study has shown that while people have been more interested in settling down during the pandemic, they still would not compromise for just anyone. If you’re stuck with someone during lockdown, they might as well be a perfect match.
If anything, the pandemic has made the singles out there more desperate than ever before. The need to fill the Covid void in their hearts had many people searching for the best dating sites.
Tinder recently shared a report which shows just how much truth there is behind the above statement:- A 20 per cent increase in the demand for real-life hangouts- A 52 per cent increase in video call requests- A 51 per cent increase in singles looking for more active dating
Casual Relationships & Physical Intimacy
Now, I think we can all agree that sex is a pretty integral part of our day-to-day lives. Whether that’s a mutually beneficial relationship, or just hugging a family member, Covid-19 has managed to hit a soft spot for everyone.
An article by BBC mentions a decline in sexual acts during the first lockdown. Disregarding the obvious reasons though, constantly being with your partner plus the bedroom-into-office lockdown transformations, have all played their part in this.
The demand for adult content has had a steady increase as well, with approximately an 11% rise in its consumption. With that being said, people would rather “satisfy” themselves, rather than engage in an intimate moment with their other half.
A FastCompany study suggested that negative feelings of loneliness or depression could be why pornography consumption saw a spike. Taking into consideration that Covid has brought to the forefront worldwide mental health awareness, the numbers make a lot of sense.
Long-Term & Married Couples
Not everyone’s struggling with loneliness though. Those who’ve been in long-term relationships or even marriage is one such example, although they’ve also had their own struggles to face since the pandemic started.
There’s a 46 per cent number of couples who reported no changes in their relationship after Covid made an appearance, as shown in a survey conducted by VeryWellMind. The same survey also found that a total of 27 per cent of the surveyees’s relationships had a turn for the better.
Nonetheless, spending hours upon hours with another person can also cause many conflicts ranging from feelings of boredom, to routine realisations about one another. An article by TIME for example, has covered that gender roles became more transparent (for heterosexual couples) which has brought up feelings of bitterness and inequality originating from the women in those relationships.
As a final point there’s quite a few couples who, while they had been in their relationships for a long time, never managed to get around cohabitation, and instead were rushed into it by the constant lockdowns. This has caused many to realise that their daily routines do not match as well as they originally thought.
Breakups & Divorces
Finally, after having to live together with your partner, sometimes there’s just so much you can take. There’s many relationships who were standing the test of time before Covid forced the two into an inseparable partnership.
Contrary to what one might think, divorce has been at an all-time high now more than ever. In fact, an article by BBC has found that the number of divorce applications have more than doubled within the last two years.
The good news is that there’s many people who decided not to waste any more time in an unfulfilling relationship. The lockdowns were many peoples’ wake-up calls about their partners and relationships. At the end of the day, is there a better time than during a worldwide pandemic to break up?
Ultimately, it’s the best time to seek closure after a breakup (be it a good one or a bad one). Breaking off a relationship which doesn't make either party happy can also help to prepare for some post-pandemic mingling.
So, whether you’ve been perpetually single, in a long-term relationship or just breaking up, it’s evident the effects the pandemic had on each and every one of the above relationships.
There’s no easy way to mingle with someone new nowadays, not to mention going out on dates. Routine can hit hard but strong relationship principles can definitely get