When Your Love Story Shifts
How to Navigate a Digital Relationship in Quarantine
By Jemma Keleher
On March 5, the Thursday before spring break, I went on a first date. Leading up to this Thursday, I’d spent two months going on dates with girls I had met on Tinder. With all of them, I’d either found a lack of chemistry or a lack of similarity in what we desired from love. I’d been through a plethora of halfhearted talking phases in which we would flirt for a few weeks and then forget about each other. By March 5, I was exhausted. And yet, because I am a hopeless romantic, I set up another date with someone I had never met before in hopes that it would end in something other than an awkward kiss and faux promises to stay in touch.
Looking back, my expectation of mediocrity could not have been more incorrect. Within the first ten minutes, my stomach already had butterflies, and my cheeks were blushing a shade embarrassingly close to a tomato. She unintentionally wooed me into having a tiny crush on her, which was a stark comparison to the apathy I was used to. I went home that night with a skip in my step and a tiny bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, things would work out this time around.
The day after our date, I broke a universal dating rule and asked her to go out with me again the day we returned from spring break. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and I’ve never been one to hide my feelings. I told her that a week seemed too long to wait to see her, and she assured me that she felt the same way. But a few days later, after talking nonstop, we got the announcement. “We are suspending in-person instruction,” Joan Gabel, President of the University of Minnesota, said in one of many emails related to COVID-19, “and are moving to online.” We would not be returning to campus for the rest of spring semester.
With that announcement, the week of waiting turned into five months. The fifteen-minute walk from my dorm to hers turned into a seven-hour drive from my house to hers. Our dates turned into nightly FaceTime calls, and the affections I would’ve expressed to her were sent via text message. Nothing went as expected, and the love story that I had begun living was shifted in a different direction.
New love in quarantine, in my experience, is similar to a long-distance relationship, except you have an extra obstacle: you don’t have any history. Every new relationship experience happens through a digital platform. I told her I liked her for the first time through iMessage, and we decided to be exclusive over FaceTime. The only physical memories I have with her are from those hours we spent together on March 5, and everything after that has been through an iPhone screen.
The digital nature of our relationship doesn’t make it any less valuable; in fact, it’s allowed me to grow an appreciation for her that may not have been as potent had we started our relationship in a conventional way. I don’t get to hug her, take her on dates, or hold her hand, but I do get to spend hours every night talking with her about things that inevitably bring us closer. As much as I would love to physically be beside her, I also love knowing that I like her for exactly who she is regardless of anything physical, and that she feels the same way.
Falling for someone who lives seven hours away has taught me more than anything that love is a choice that you make every day. You wake up and decide that you want to be with that person. You decide more than anything that they are worth it, and that any pain you may go through is worth it, no matter how things turn out.
When you’re navigating new love, especially in quarantine, you have to trust that that person will be there to catch you when you make the choice to fall for them every day. You have to trust that when this is over and you can see them again, all of the effort you put in will be worth it. You may have nothing to base your trust on, but you have to give it anyway. You have to trust that if you put in the effort to love them, they will return it, and things will work out how they are meant to.
As quarantine has shown many of us, love isn’t something that can only be done in one way. If you would’ve asked me three months ago if I would date someone who I wouldn’t see in person for five months, I would’ve laughed in your face. Long-distance love isn’t something many people think of when they imagine their ideal romantic lives, but choosing to care about someone regardless of how far away they are is one of the most romantic things you can do. When you’re faced with a choice of ending something good or pushing through quarantine with the hope that things will work out, it becomes clear that love and affection transcend physical barriers.
Part of me is terrified that when we do finally reunite, things will feel different; however, our entire relationship is different than we expected it to be. Things will undoubtedly be awkward the first time we see each other, but if this is truly meant to happen, it won’t change anything. I tell myself that if I’m able to make it through months of not being able to see her, I think I will be able to handle finally being able to see her again, even if it is different than what my daydreams entail.
In the meantime, while you count down the days until that person can be yours, and you can hold their hand and hug them as often as you want to, make the most of the relationship you’re growing together. You watch skateboarding shows with them on FaceTime even though you have hardly any idea what’s going on, and they watch “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” with you every night even though they can’t tell the five sisters apart. You knit them a scarf in their favorite shade of blue yarn, and they make you a t-shirt with their art on it. You express your affection wholeheartedly, because even if the two of you aren’t physically in the same space, the affection you have for each other, you hope, is enough to hold you together.
Growing a new relationship in quarantine feels like throwing yourself face-first off of a cliff into a world of uncertainty, but knowing that it will be worth it at the bottom. No matter how terrifying it is, the physical distance between the two of you is no reason to stop yourself from exploring what your connection has the potential to become, even if that distance is a seven-hour drive. When you’re considering if this new, crazy love you’re feeling is real even though you can’t see the person you feel it for, know that it is. The screen that separates you does not subtract from your affection, and while you may have to work a little harder at it, things will work if that is what you both choose. Choose to wake up every day and continue throwing yourself off that cliff. It feels crazy, but in the end, whether or not things work out, you owe it to yourself and to your person to try.