Likely Normal

Remember dating? That thing where you’d put on pants, go to a bar, and awkwardly shout compliments over loud music while trying not to spill your drink? Yeah, neither do we. Welcome to the era of romance in a pandemic, where the closest thing to a meet-cute is locking eyes with someone across the breakroom while you both wait 30 seconds for the microwave to nuke your sad desk lunch. With bars closed and “social distancing” being the ultimate mood-killer, the watercooler has officially become the new singles’ hotspot—a place where the most scandalous thing you can do is stand less than six feet apart while debating whether the new hand-sanitizer dispenser is touchless or just broken.

Thank the Lord, I got married well before COVID.  I don’t know how people are expected to do it today.  Flirting now involves a delicate dance of mask etiquette and Purell-based foreplay. *”Nice KN95 you’ve got there… is that the 3-ply?”* is the new “Come here often?” Shared commiseration over Zoom fatigue has replaced buying rounds of drinks, and nothing says “I’m into you” like offering to swap your last Clorox wipe for their half-empty bottle of ibuprofen. The thrill of the chase has been replaced by the thrill of remembering if you both got your second shots on the same timeline. Even the office Christmas party has been downgraded to a “BYO-hand-sanitizer happy hour” on Microsoft Teams, where the most daring move you can make is turning your camera on without checking your background first.

And yet, against all odds, love finds a way. Maybe it’s the shared trauma of surviving another all-hands meeting where someone forgot to unmute. Maybe it’s the way their eyes crinkle above their mask when they laugh at your “I survived another COVID Monday” mug. Or maybe it’s just that after enduring this, anyone who doesn’t actively annoy you on Slack is basically marriage material.