Amid 2020's waves of quarantine and isolation, many of our most reliable forms of social interaction were forced to move from the real world to digital spaces in online classes, office meetings on Microsoft Teams, and family dinners on Zoom. The shift was jarring for us and for the businesses built on human connection - but the dating world was already halfway there. According to data analysis firm The Manifest, more than one-third of people in the U.S. used dating apps in the six months prior to the global shutdown and their prominence has only grown since. A report from Apptopia indicates apps like Bumble, OkCupid, and Match saw significant increases in usage, with BLK, a dating app geared towards Black singles, seeing 23% month-over-month growth between September and October 2020.
But forming meaningful connections through apps can be extremely challenging during a pandemic. Piled on top of the digital divide is a difficult balancing act between community, personal, and emotional safety and the human connection we are all looking for. This is only exacerbated by varying community health standards and the politicization of the pandemic.
Lauren Vitacco, who met her current boyfriend Jonathan on Hinge in August 2020, feels lucky to have successfully walked that tightrope. "It was much less stressful before the pandemic because you could just meet up with someone if you wanted to and not worry about them having COVID," Vitacco said. "[During the pandemic] it was definitely more of a serious filtration process."
Vitacco put significant effort into vetting potential dates' attitudes about safety before meeting them in-person, opting for a FaceTime first date instead. "I did bluntly ask him at different points before we met in person."
After meeting in person - and outdoors - for cannoli, Vitacco decided she wanted to keep seeing Jonathan, but knew her decision would affect not just her, but all of her close contacts. "I definitely talked to my roommate about it all because I didn't want to do anything that made her uncomfortable. I told her everything that we did and where we went because she was in my pod."
Vitacco admits she was lucky to find a partner whom she trusted both romantically and in COVID-safety judgements, but for many people, including Taylor Norton, the pandemic put a pause on dating.
"In peak pandemic, I was not using the dating apps because I knew that there was no way I was going to feel comfortable meeting anyone," said Norton.
As time went on and vaccines were introduced, she was less concerned, but knew she had to continue taking safety precautions. In addition to sharing her vaccine status on her dating profile, she organized outdoor dates with matches. While the outdoor dates were originally planned as a health precaution, she found personal comfort to be an added benefit as well. "I feel like sometimes when you go to [someone's] house, there's more pressure. It was nice to just be able to go on a walk and get to know that person instead of necessarily having to do something," said Norton. "That was a nice change."
A Newfound Confidence
Since she started using dating apps, Taylor Norton has experienced significant personal growth and a thorough confidence boost.
"When I first started using dating apps, I was very scared to meet new people. But using the dating apps and dating around helped me be so much more confident in myself and confident talking to people I don't know," said Norton.
But the shift in dating app culture was not well-received by everybody. Dating app veteran Babette Hofacre experienced a significant increase in ghosting - when someone cuts off all communication without explanation - compared to her time before the pandemic. "In the early stages of dating apps, it was really easy to meet people and go on dates," said Hofacre. "It was like night and day from when I was on the apps pre-pandemic... [During the pandemic,] you would message people, but they would not message back, or you would message people and there would be [a few] exchanges and then they would stop talking to you."
In addition to looking for a romantic partner, Hofacre, who moved to Washington, D.C. during the pandemic for a graduate program in Speech Language Pathology, also experienced a shift in the emphasis on politics on dating apps that she had never experienced before.
Finding a Perfect Match
As a dating app veteran, Babette Hofacre chooses the content of her Hinge profile very carefully. "[My profile is] a mix of photos to showcase my hobbies and my personality...I'm really into hiking and playing music, so my photos tend to be either me in nature or me with a musical instrument."
When sorting through the profiles of potential matches, she is drawn to those with similar interests. In addition to putting all her cards on the table, Hofacre finds that showcasing her hobbies is a good conversation starter as well.
Hofacre considers herself liberal and expressed wariness about matching with or dating someone who does not share her values. "My values are for my own safety," said Hofacre. "I don't want to be with someone who is Republican and [doesn't] have those liberal values, [like support for] Black Lives Matter, protect[ing] trans rights, or pro-choice, because I feel like they're the aggressor and they might hurt myself or my friends."
While discussing values and sharing health information may now have increased prevalance in heterosexual dating, this is nothing new for the gay community. "[For a long time], gay men have had to think about diseases that haven't gone away," said Dr. Joseph Schwartz, who studies health communication and HIV prevention among gay men through PrEP, a medication that is over 99% effective in preventing HIV. "Almost all the major dating apps have places to indicate what your HIV status is [and] when the last time you were tested for various [sexually transmitted diseases was.]
Sharing health information, setting safety expectations, and discussing boundaries for the encounter have been vital components of personal protection in the gay community for years. "In many ways for gay people, it was a normal part of the dating experience. Then in the pandemic, heterosexual people [had] to adopt those things too."
"It'd be really [positive] if we could have a sense of openness about health, and people could talk about what their statuses are without feeling judged or without feeling shame, and [for] that [to become] an open part of conversation surrounding dating and sex."
Though they were brought on by a collective tragedy, the pandemic-induced changes in dating app culture are not going away anytime soon. Increased transparency in relationship expectations, health communication, and personal boundaries will likely be positive and lasting steps forward in the evolution of modern dating.
"It would be nice if these ideas of sharing vaccination status would translate to other areas, but we haven't quite gotten there yet," said Dr. Schwartz. Discussion of HIV status may still be stigmatized in many circles, but current trends of sharing health information such as vaccination status are a step in the right direction for all areas of personal health.
