The world is crazy right now. Everything is changing day by day. There’s so much fear in the news about how this situation is affecting every single aspect of our lives.
Which makes you wonder:
How is this going to affect our relationships?
If we’re in a relationship, are we going to hate each other after weeks of being confined together in a small space?
If we’re single, how is this going to affect our chances of finding love?
What We Know (And What We Don’t Know)
What I’m about to tell you is guesswork. We don’t really know how pandemics affect our love lives.
We know that dating app usage tends to spike when people are stuck at home. So if you’re single, get online!
We know that intense experiences create an intense bond between people.
We know that life-threatening events tend to make people “take significant actions in their close relationships.”[1]
We know that the divorce rate recently spiked in one city in China, after 10 million people were finally allowed to move around after being in lockdown for over a month.[2]
Here’s what I think that means for you…
It’s Crunch Time
All of us go through times when we wake up to the fact that everything in life is temporary. We can’t count on tomorrow being the same as yesterday. Everything we hold dear can slip away in a moment.
This is one of those times.
You’re being hit with stress, grief, loss, anxiety about the future. Even though you and me and everyone else just wants life to go back to normal, that’s probably not going to happen.
You are going to be different because of this. You will not be the same person at the end of this year as you were at the beginning.
You’re going to be making some hard choices about what really matters to you.
Those choices will affect everything from the kind of people you want in your life to how long you want to wait before you get married and have children.
We make different decisions when we think we have all the time in the world. We’re more likely to put things off. We don’t feel a sense of urgency.
But now we’re being faced with the reality that life is short.
What Needs to Change in Your Life?
Do you really want to spend another day in a relationship that’s not working for you?
Do you really want to put off finding Mr. Right until your life is less busy?
Do you really want to waste time with men who string you along?
Some people right now want to have all the fun they possibly can. Other people are realizing that their relationships are superficial, and they want to experience something meaningful before they die.
No wonder life-threatening events cause us to make major life changes. Divorce rates, marriages, and pregnancies all spike.
If you’re single, then one of your major life changes might be a change in how much having a relationship matters to you.
Being quarantined alone can feel incredibly lonely. You see all the social media posts of couples and families at home together, doing board games and baking and rediscovering each other. Who do you get to talk to at the end of the day?
Up until recently, you had all the time in the world to go out on dates if you wanted to. And now the whole world has changed….
And who knows what will happen next.
The Future of Relationships
I suspect that we’re going to see a lot of new relationships start, a flurry of activity on online dating sites, and a fair number of relationships ending, too.
Relationships are going to feel really intense right now. That may lead people to make commitments or break things off when they wouldn’t have ordinarily done so.
So don’t keep waiting for things to go back to normal. Be proactive.
Use this opportunity to think about what really matters to you and what you’re willing to do to get it.
And realize that other people might be doing the same thing.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/03/31/a-911-baby-boom/955ccf16-0d42-4641-94fc-94853fce3cda/
[2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/to-have-and-to-hold-in-quarantine-and-in-health
Let us know what you think!