Pandemic Dating Diaries
By Anonymous
Pandemic Dating Diaries is a TBI series that features moments in love, dating, and sex during Covid-19 directly from our readers. Have a story you’d like to submit? Email us or DM us on Twitter or Instagram.
Our story started out so well: Drew and I met 20+ years ago while playing in the pit for musical theatre shows (him on bass, me on keyboards). I was dating someone at the time, but let’s just say I took note of him: He is tall, cute, and athletic.
When I became single and on the prowl again, I finagled an arrangement to carpool with him to a show we were working on and offered to take him out to dinner as a thank-you, all the while sizing him up for any potential interest in me.
Nada, zip, zero.
I heard after the fact that he was seeing someone, so I moved on.
Over the years, we stayed in touch by email, text, and so on, and would see each other from time to time: working together on a show, getting together to play chamber music, or running into each other on the street. But that was it.
Sign up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best of the Bay Area in your inbox every week.
Seven years ago, I got married. We—the husband and I—had dinner with Drew when he happened to be in the area (at that time, we lived further apart). Unlike other male relationships I’ve maintained over time, I never had a sense that he was angling to make a move on me. There just seemed to be this nice, solid basis of shared acquaintances and experience tying us to each other in a completely platonic and respectful way.
Fast-forward to a year ago — months after my divorce became final — Drew texts about catching up. Keep in mind, our normal MO is a five-minute conversation on the street, two minutes chatting during break at rehearsal, or at most, a dinner and then silence for six months, a year, two years, whatever. So imagine my surprise when, after a get-together in October when I oh-so-casually mentioned that I was divorced, he texts me a few days later. And keeps texting me.
He invites me to go shopping for housewares. And to a museum. Hmmm…suddenly I’m starting to get the feeling that maybe things have changed in our relationship. After a month of this “is-he-isn’t-he?” back and forth in my head, we officially cement our departure from the friends zone with a snog in the car after him coming to see one of my shows.
Things were going swimmingly — we spent a week together in Napa for Christmas, went to Vegas with my brother, visited Portland to see a friend of mine, and celebrated his birthday in February of this year in New York City. It was truly a whirlwind of activity and we both seemed so excited to catch up on all of this “lost” time when we knew each other but weren’t dating.
Then the pandemic hit. In mid-March, my company, whose office is close to his house, recommended people work from home. As did his. And since I’d been staying at his place a couple nights a week to lessen the commute in god-awful traffic, he suggested staying with him during shelter-in-place.
Awesome! We hit our stride — we travel well together, the sex is a-ma-zing (seriously, it’s like he’s built just for me) — everything seemed to be going great. I started working from his dining room table while he worked out of his office. With the kitchen in between and doors on both sides, no worries about noise bleed from our respective Zoom meetings. For lunch, we rustled up some food, watched a little Great British Baking Show, then went back to our workstations until dinner. We then did our own thing until bedtime.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
So, where did it all go wrong?
I’m not quite sure. At 57 years of age, Drew had never been married, never lived with anyone. One might say that was a red flag, but I liked to think that he just hadn’t met someone who could appreciate all of his cute little personality quirks.
Did I mention that he has two cats? Some would say that was red flag number two. All I know is that he was all too keen on buying a cool new leopard-print tube for the cats to play with but “forgot” to buy the part needed to fix the toilet in the hallway by the bedroom, forcing me to stumble my way through the living room, dining room, and kitchen in the dark to take a middle-of-the-night pee. And after several weeks of sexual famine, he gave me a light pat on the hip before rolling over for bed, after I’ve spent HOURS watching him pet the cats lying contentedly on his chest.
Somehow, during the time we stayed together. (I went back to my own apartment after two months because I felt like I was imposing.) He didn’t stop me. Red flag number three?
Drew “realized” that settling down and getting married wasn’t what he thought it was and walked back the sentiment he’d shared with me before our foray into dating.
He told me not to take it personally, but frankly, how is that possible? The experience that I thought was bringing us closer and showing that we were compatible in a cohabitation state backfired spectacularly. He set strict boundaries around when we could see each other — only on the weekends so he could “focus” on work during the week. Why aren’t the cats (especially the one who meows incessantly (renamed to TLS: “That Little Shit”) a distraction? Why were they allowed to be there all the time and I’m not? How did I lose most favored nation status? Or did I never have it in the first place?
I venture that sheltering in place is what cured/broke him. You see, even when you’re living together, you go away during the day and have time apart to concentrate on work and then look forward to seeing your loved one at home over a nice meal and a glass of wine. But my being present in his space 24/7 after a lifetime of never sharing a space with another human made him feel claustrophobic and inhibited.
And he now says that he thinks he’s destined to be alone, a loner. “It’s not you, it’s me” in another package. The pandemic package.
And so, we’re taking some space to think about what we want. I know I want to be with someone who can’t wait to see me, whenever that is, not relegate me to a schedule that’s convenient for him and doesn’t get in the way of house projects or cat cuddling. It would probably also be ideal to be with someone I didn’t have to drug myself up with antihistamines for, either. I suppose it’ll be a nice consolation to him that he can let the cats sleep with him in bed again. I’m sure they’ll be a welcome change to my cold feet.
