So the pandemic is over, or is it? And did it take your relationship with it?
So the pandemic is over, or is it? And did it take your relationship with it?
Are you dusting off your social life and piecing it back together, or are you still reinventing yourself after the long isolation? Some of us want to lose a few pounds before rejoining the living, some of us worry that we’ve lost our social sparkle after so much time alone, and some of us have had our hearts broken in many large and small ways over the past year and a half. Our finances may have taken a beating, our health may have been harmed, people we love may have become ill or been taken from us. If the pandemic has made you feel alone, you are, in fact, in great company.
COVID-19 affected us all, as a nation, as people, as human beings.
It affected our organisms, our psyches, our loves, and beloveds. It affected our routines, our coping mechanisms, our friendships, our politics, our children, our pets, our neighborhoods, our communities of faith; the very infrastructure of our lives. It’s no wonder we struggle to regain our footing. There were some silver linings in the clouds, however: our online lives, something which recently seemed a guilty alternative to our in-person lives, were strengthened, and became a vital lifeline for us all, for work, education, community, connection, for hope. Among these online possibilities, the modus for meeting people was strengthened, and given a new credibility, and a more inclusive community, following a couple of decades of perceived and real fringiness. The ingenuity and charm which has always defined the internet has finally taken center stage, for the good of us all. The barriers and the inhibitions to using the Internet in every aspect of our lives have fallen away.
During the midst of the pandemic, the only safe way to meet singles was online.
And from this outcropping of human relatedness, new possibilities for the future of all forms of analog and online dating were reborn and reinvented. Whether you are now hoping to meet local singles, explore dating sites for people your age, learn the best dating sites, find matchmaking services, hire a reputable dating service, or even gather romantic date ideas for the moment you’ve been planning after meeting your soulmate, the menu choices have expanded exponentially. While certainly good news, this can be a mind-boggling challenge for singles of every age, and the question of how to rejoin the party can be a daunting one.
For my own purposes, I plan to reenter the mainstream via Carolinas Matchmaker, Laurie Berzack’s, Women’s Virtual Dating Bootcamp.
I still harbor some trepidation about the process of dating years after my long marriage ended, and I need good general advice – because let’s face it, in the world of social media, the world we currently inhabit, ALL dating has a major online component. If my Facebook picture is twelve years old, (spoiler alert: it IS!) where does that leave me? What are the new norms? (Not that I’ve ever placed much stock in being normal but I do want to feel and become part of the conversation.) Who’s out there, and why? What are the pitfalls, the red flags, the green lights? Where are the goalposts? What dating practices are good manners online, which ones are bad? Is online dating fun, or is it awful or is it both?
My goals in attending Laurie’s Women’s Virtual Dating Bootcamp are not merely to realign my online presence and make it more appealing to would-be paramours, but to find and connect with a community of others, to cultivate a metaphorical victory garden as bulwark against a terrible loneliness that rose among us human beings, and to share the fruits of that garden with others who also walk this path.
