California’s only been fully reopened for a week, and I’ve already said “I have a COVID boyfriend” about twenty times. I’m getting to see acquaintances for the first time in over a year (at the bar, the beach, the sidewalk). We don’t catch up, per se, but rattle off updates while being pulled to separate events.
Responses to my news have included lines like “yes, I saw that!” or “CUTE!” or “oh my god me too!”
I’m not alone with a quarantine relationship change. I know of eight new couples, two engagements, two babies, and three pregnancies; I also know of one divorce and two ended engagements. (I’m sure there are a lot more break-ups, but people tend to share relationship endings more quietly than beginnings.) About a third of my friends lost or quit a job. And most of my friends now live in different cities or apartments.
Photo: Courtesy of the author
But how exactly how does someone find romance amid the most lethal event in American history? Or how does someone fall in love — at all? I’ve answered both those questions for myself, simultaneously.
I first saw Fernando on the dating app Hinge. Despite both of us living in San Francisco for more than five years and sharing mutual acquaintances, we had never crossed paths. We were both booked to (in full drag) take a packed bus to Reno, Nevada to gamble and drink with other crusty loud mouths over last Easter weekend. Alas, Covid-19 canceled the drag trip, and it’s unclear if even that would’ve rocketed or snuffed our chances together.
I’d forgotten that when you squeeze people goodbye you can feel how warm they are.
Our first date was in the square on 24th street in Noe. We each took two drinks from the case in the back of my scooter. (I was deep into the self-medication via adopting a White Claws consumption routine as part of the quarantine.) We settled on two boulders six feet away from each other and about 20 feet away from everyone else and agreed that we were comfortable de-masking.
The physical distance didn’t last long. Accounts differ as to how many minutes I waited to ask Fernando if I could kiss him. (I claim I waited for at least 20, he says 10.) The drinks moved quickly too, but we wanted to keep talking about Marcel Duchamp or tacos or something, so we re-settled at a sidewalk restaurant one block away.
The conversation never stopped. By the time our boxed burgers were gone, we’d already agreed to a second date: doing manicures at Fernando’s.
A date inside was a risky step but we’d already transgressed with the kissing. Besides, Fernando has just bought a professional hand drier and a new, quick-dry topcoat. Like many concerned and careful citizens, I think we decided to just let ourselves have this one thing.
We kissed again.
Quarantine had been so long; I’d forgotten that when you squeeze people goodbye you can feel how warm they are.
A few months before Covid-19 appeared I’d finally felt ready — excited, even — to date again. Single people know it’s a rare and hard-earned period when you’ve actually scrapped off bitterness and feel placidly open to whoever may come your way. I’d done the emotional rebuilding. I’d bought the new, cute clothes. I was ready to make a profile and start kissin’ frogs.
Then, in a matter of weeks, all the gentlemen I was going to meet fled to their homes or the city entirely. By April, life was hard to recognize.
I was doing what was expected and right: I was going to Trader Joe’s once a week, washing my hands until they looked like chalk, sitting in bed, playing in Animal Crossing, growing my beard, dodging social Zooms, and getting far, far too drunk alone on Friday nights.
We kept seeing each other. Not every date drove me to a precipice.
But I kept those damn apps open on my phone. The fear and strangeness stoked my loneliness instead of eliminating it. Seasons passed.
After that first date with Fernando, I didn’t go straight home. I felt too expansive and giddy to cram back inside my apartment. Instead, I drove my moped to the top of Dolores Park, opened another drink, and watched the fog swirl through downtown.
The year had been pure drudgery. I wanted to toast the nice surprise a good date can be, while also leveling with myself that — based on experience — good first dates only juiced out into a few more nice afternoons, then nothing. We’d hang out a handful more times, likely.
But I took a picture. I listened to Abba’s “Fernando.” I wanted to be wrong.
We were easy — the world was not.
We kept seeing each other. Not every date drove me to a precipice. But I was learning something about Fernando that I’d never gotten from anyone before — he was easy. Time together took planning, sure. We both have two roommates. Being together meant exposing them to each other and every person they were with. We had to draw our social circles tighter than most friends to mitigate that risk.
It was delicate and complex but not one moment was difficult. We allowed a lot of room for changes, mood swings, untenable work schedules, and respect for regulations. We joked about if we were ever going to have a fight and almost got into a fight over it. But we were always with excitement towards each other. Lots of “I want to see you” texts. Lots of *kissy face emoji* responses.
We were easy — the world was not.
The 2020 presidential election was nearing. No prediction of Trump’s loss was strong enough to silence our scorned hope from 2016. Besides, Trump's damage would take decades to undo. Besides, efforts toward police reform weren’t going far enough. Besides, mass shootings were still happening. Besides, there was no way we’d see our families this year. Besides, Asian-focused hate crimes were building. Besides, artists, businesses, and friends were fleeing the city never to return.
Besides, people were still dying every. single. day.
We couldn’t even gather to mourn them. We just had to donate or march or Tweet or decide to stop reading and try to sleep. Yet, Fernando was always so happy to see me.
When I walked up the stairs to his apartment he’d be waiting at the open door with a smile somehow larger than his head. Sometimes, I simply wasn’t making it up the stairs quickly enough and he’d be peaking around the corner of the stairwell to catch a glimpse of me earlier. We’d lay on the couch like two weighted blankets, silent and exhausted from the work week and whatever new season of the pandemic we were in.
Concerned our weary comfort may become a rut, we went on a real date-date. I put on eyeliner, COLOGNE, and a nice SWEATER. He picked me up in a CAR. We drove one town over and ate SEAFOOD. There was a VOTIVE on the table. After, he dropped me off at my place. I laid down on my bed, fully dressed, and stared at the ceiling. I could feel bandages unraveling inside me.
After three months of seeing each other and Fernando being very measured about dropping hints that he wanted a label but not pushing, I ask-told him “I would like to start calling you my boyfriend. How do you feel about that?” He said, “I would love that.” About a week later we exchanged “I love you”s. Then you couldn’t keep the words out of our mouths. I hadn’t had a boyfriend in five years so all I wanted to talk about was my boyfriend, Fernando, who was my boyfriend. Soon, my phone was suggesting “boyfriend” after I typed “my.”
We spent our first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and NYE together in the same living room. He shot one of my drag videos. I gave feedback on his work projects for work. He started cycling again. I quit my job. We celebrated our first Valentine’s, my birthday, his birthday — and we still hadn’t seen a movie in a theatre, gone to a friend’s for a dinner party, or danced the night away in a club. I could’ve been in love with someone who danced with little finger guns and had no idea. At least enough restaurants had sidewalk dining that I knew he tipped servers well.
It was strange to not be able to throw him into a party and see how he did. Few friends got to meet him, so I only had my own judgment to go off of. It was enough but I was used to more sounding boards. Still, I told friends that this relationship had “the farthest view of any I’d had so far.” And, again, it was all so easy. Moving forward was met with excitement. Missteps were met with listening. We stayed ourselves but also built this third, shared identity too.
With Fernando, I am more reliable. I’m steadier, more laid back, and a better family member. My priorities have shifted. My friends mention how much happier I am.
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I find myself starring into the maw of what just happened to us — of what is still happening. Covid-19 is another complex, historical, and painful experience in a chain of bombshell events that have been re-directing our lives for the last six years.
Covid-19 brutally shifted my perspective on how delicate life is. Fernando softened me. He made the good parts of what’s left easier for me to see. It’s bewildering that the two things happened at the same time, but I’m so grateful for the counterbalance.He’s my silver lining, in a thunderhead year.
Joe Wadlington is a writer, artist, and drag queen who lives in the Mission District of San Francisco. He’s written for The New Yorker, Vox, Food & Wine Magazine, Architectural Digest, and his monthly reading series “Happy Endings” is hosted at The Make-Out Room.
