It s been a long, hard, weird year, much of it marked by quarantine, and I m not ashamed to admit I have completely forgotten what life was like before militant hand-washing and mask-wearing. As New York begins the cautious process of reopening, it s not anxiety that plagues me, exactly; it s more of a general sense of befuddlement at how the world works. I m still not reverting to most of my pre-pandemic habits—no crowded C train rides for me, as long as my bike holds out—but even the little things deeply confuse me.
"So I m just supposed to...sit at a table? Near other people? Instead of in the park? And drink?" I whispered to a friend on our first venture out to a bar in our Brooklyn neighborhood last weekend. I expected her to roll her eyes, but she was as uncertain as I was about how the whole process worked. (Honestly, I hated every aspect of it, except for the Cuomo-mandated PB&Js we were issued with our cocktails.)
Seeing as I can t even seem to transition back to a casual bar visit with a friend without confusion, there s another hallmark of so-called normal life that s looming over my head: dating. I m a single, 27-year-old woman who would ideally like to not be single one day, which tends to require some effort of the putting-on-a-good-bra-and-inquiring-about-another-person s-line-of-work variety, but even the act of seeing more than one or two of my friends at once feels wild right now, so how am I supposed to take a chance on a stranger?
It s not necessarily the risk of COVID-19 transmission that worries me—I ve been getting tested regularly, and New York s infection rate has fallen enough to make me feel reasonably comfortable getting a masked, distanced outdoor drink with a new person, so long as they ve also recently tested negative. (If you haven t had the "Hey, so when was your last nose swab?" conversation with a potential partner, you have a real treat in store, let me tell you.)
What really stresses me out about the prospect of introducing dating back into my life is the ritual of it all. I ve spent the last five months either completely alone or seeing close friends only over Zoom and in outdoor areas. How do I transition from interacting only with people who know my birthday and my childhood AIM screen name to getting to know a whole new person? Suddenly, the fact that I used to regularly meet up with strangers—inside of bars, no less!—and while away an evening in their company seems incomprehensible.
"What do people DO on dates, I forget," I recently texted several of my beloved group chats, hoping they d provide a wealth of tips. Unfortunately, the singles were as confused as I was, whereas the couples in our midst were mostly focused on trying not to kill each other after months of prolonged exposure. I remember the general gist—you order a drink, you smile flirtatiously, you oh-so-casually compare friends and hometowns and "cat vs. dog" preferences—but what I m failing to recall is why we put ourselves through any of it.
My reopening confusion aside, the answer is obvious: Single people (or monogamous ones, anyway) go on dates in hopes of meeting "The One," someone wonderful and perfect enough to allow us to stop dating forever. The date I have scheduled for tonight may seem daunting, but I have to remind myself it s actually a step toward where I want to be in five years, even if I find myself hewing to the time-honored tradition of having a meh time and stopping on the way home for a consolation burrito.
Will my date end up being my wife and the mother of my children? Probably not, but if the women on the Bachelor reruns I ve been watching throughout the pandemic have taught me anything, it s that you have to take a chance on love, even if it seems inherently out of reach. (Will I be obsessively hand-sanitizing and talking about best food-safety practices throughout the date? Probably, but there s no rule against that.)
