With ongoing quarantine measures making it harder than ever before to spend time with your friends and loved ones, it’s understandable that so many people are struggling romantically right now. After all, how can you be expected to maintain a healthy romance when you can’t go out to restaurants, see a movie together, or even hang out with your mutual friends? For those looking for love, these are particularly difficult times, given that social distancing effectively prevents most forms of meeting new people. Nevertheless, I’ve discovered a number of surprising upsides from my time in quarantine thus far, and have actually learned that it has helped make my relationship stronger than ever before.
Here are the tactics my partner and I rely upon to stay close during quarantine, and why I think others shouldn’t give up on the pursuit of love just because of social distancing measures.
We’ve made this a learning experience
My partner and I have one serious advantage going for us right now – we’re both in lockdown together, in a shared apartment, which means that we’re effectively spending more time together right now than at any point in our relationship. For some people, this can be difficult, as even the most outgoing individuals sometimes need some personal space and time to themselves. For us, however, we’ve decided to make this a learning experience where we can both get to know one another better than ever before while also preparing for a future where we spend the rest of our days together.
This means we’ve embarked upon a number of journeys that we previously would have avoided – we’ve cooked before, for instance, but these days we strive to make at least two meals a day at one another’s side. In doing so, we’re learning more about our dietary preferences and our strengths (and weaknesses) in the kitchen and dining rooms. My partner loves to set and clean up the table, for instance, and has a proclivity for doing the dishes while I handle most – though not at all – of the actual baking and cooking. This distribution of labor ensures we’re both involved in the meal-prep process, though we shake things up from time to time, depending on what we’re having.
I previously read that couples who cook together stay together, and I’m starting to believe it. I also learned that my partner is far more invested in cleaning our apartment than I am, which has helped me work on my own inclination to put off cleaning up the living room or the bathroom. For the first time, I feel motivated to keep my living space tidy because it ensures I can take a burden off someone else’s shoulders while feeling better about myself.
We’re maintaining our health together
Since we’re spending quarantine together, we’re effectively maintaining our health together – both physically and mentally. We know that the verdict is still out about whether you can get coronavirus from intercourse, but we can keep ourselves safe with protection. This means reminding one another as gently as possible to keep our masks on, to wash our hands, and to keep our clothes and car clean after we venture outside once in a blue moon.
We’re also looking after one another’s mental health, which entails giving the other person some privacy now and then. Staying together sometimes necessitates being apart, even if it’s only briefly, and ensuring that nobody gets stir crazy from cabin fever. I won’t lie – at the start of the lockdown I feared that our relationship might be imperiled by the quarantine, but I’ve since come to discover that a pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime bonding experience.