Crush culture during COVID-19: Catching the love bug

First dates, kisses, and getting lovesick rather than COVID-19 over quarantine

Taylor DeGuzman/Arts & Culture Editor/The USD Vista

Quarantine has lasted more than eight months. And for many, several of those months were spent never seeing daylight for weeks on end, binging more than five different shows, obsessing over ten minute ab workouts on YouTube, and going on way too many evening strolls with one’s parents. While many people took this time to hide away and find their true introverted self, others found true love. Read that one more time. There are those who accepted their singleness and the fact that they would experience a global pandemic before an actual relationship, and then there are those who caught the love bug.

The relationship obsessed and those who would have a new crush every week went home and traded late night kisses for chocolate and romantic sleepovers for sleeping under the same roof as their parents. One might think that it would never be possible to live out their rom-com fantasies amidst a pandemic, however, some USD students anonymously decided to kiss and tell how they got lovesick instead of COVID-19.

*Editor’s note: names have been changed to protect identities

Swiping right on the right one

Rebekah Williams* swiped right for the very first time and took a chance on finding the one. 

“I was immediately drawn to the fact that his bio said ‘Always down for a breakfast for dinner date’ since I absolutely love breakfast for dinner,” Williams said. “We bonded right away and decided to meet each other in person, even though I’ve never met someone off a dating app before.” 

She decided to meet up with her date in the middle of August at a beach near her house. Instead of waiting in a visible location for the date, Williams hid to the side on a bench just to make sure she wasn’t getting catfished. 

“I was on the phone with my best friend because I was so nervous and I told her that I saw a super cute tall kid with a big picnic blanket setting up for his girlfriend,” Williams said. “And then he just sat there for a little and I realized ‘Oh my gosh, that’s for me.” 

Williams was being super cautious with social distancing and made sure that the date location made it possible to social distance. Her date brought an oversized picnic blanket so that they both could sit on opposite corners of the blanket and stay as safe as possible. 

“He was super respectful with social distancing and brought hand sanitizer and drinks for us. I was surprised how well we hit it off on our first date,” Williams explained. 

The two ended up being together for four hours in total and distanced the entire time up until the end of the date. 

“He said at the end ‘I really wanna kiss you right now’ and I actually ended up kissing him and breaking the whole social distancing thing,” Williams said. “But, my thought process was that I wanted to see him again and so I decided to go with it and show him how interested I was.” 

The two have continued to see each other over quarantine, and he invited Williams over for Thanksgiving; since Williams is from Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated early in October. They have both met each other’s families and continue to have responsible conversations about how safe they are being over quarantine. 

Williams noticed that before quarantine started, people who were going on dates would ask questions centered around who the person might be seeing or hooking up with, and now the conversation has shifted to how responsible one has been over quarantine, if they’ve been social distancing, and if they’ve had any symptoms recently. The conversation has switched from talking about STDs to talking about COVID-19. 

At the beginning of quarantine, Williams had no intention of meeting anyone; rather, they wanted to get themselves in a happy, healthy place and focus on themselves before anyone else.

“I really learned that you can’t force it,” Williams said. “I think the second you’re being the best version of yourself is when the person who is meant to love you will come into your life and love that version.” 
Though it was her first time seriously using a dating app, Williams was able to swipe right on the right one.  

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger 

Matthew Roosevelt* spilled the hot tea on the dating experience he had over quarantine. 

Last fall, while studying abroad, Roosevelt instantly fell in love at first “online” sight, when he caught a glimpse of one of his best friend’s friend on social media. After telling his friend to introduce the two, the friend explained that she would make it happen once Roosevelt was home from being abroad. 

A few months go by and Roosevelt forgets about the girl, until all students are sent home at the end of March due to COVID-19.  He quickly reached out to his best friend and explained that he wanted to actually start talking to the girl he was crushing on while he was abroad. Of course, the best friend made it happen for the two. After knowing that Roosevelt was interested, the girl exchanged numbers with him, and they both followed each other on Instagram. Then, Roosevelt reached out to the girl and asked her out on a virtual coffee date. 

“I told her to grab her favorite coffee so we could hang out virtually,” Roosevelt said. “We ended up hitting it off right away and I asked her if she wanted to do another virtual date and she said yes.” 

Even though she goes to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (SLO), Roosevelt ended up meeting her and her friends in person, and spent six hours with her. They both continued to hit it off and grow closer, which eventually led to them meeting and spending time with each other’s families until they went back to their respective homes and had to communicate long distance.   

After things between the two became more apparently serious, Roosevelt explained how he made it official when visiting her again in San Luis Obispo, and how big of a deal it meant to him since he had never been in a serious relationship before. 

“It just seemed really right and real, and she was so excited to see me when I came. It was honestly one of the most fun weekends ever,” Roosevelt said. “After kayaking in the bay, we were laying in the sand and she asked me what I was thinking. I said that it all felt pretty crazy how everything inevitably fell together, and then I just asked her to be my girlfriend and she said yes.”  

Although this seems like just the start of a love story, something quickly changed. 

In order to keep their relationship strong, they continued to talk over the phone when they were apart and she mentioned that she was sending him a book in the mail. Unfortunately, after that, something switched and she “turned on a dime,” as Roosevelt explained. “She said ‘I’m breaking up with you’ and she took all the excitement away from me,” he said. 

A couple days after the breakup, Roosevelt received the book in the mail, and what was inside made him even more hurt and confused. Roosevelt shared that the “sweetest” note was inside the book, explaining how awesome he was, how much she liked him, and how she had never been treated so well before.  

Heartbroken, Roosevelt said he needed some closure, and ended up calling his now ex-girlfriend’s dad, since they got along really well.

“Her dad said ‘I’ve never seen my daughter like a guy as much as she likes you,’” Roosevelt said. “So, I decided I was going to write a letter to get all the feelings off my chest and drive it to her house.” 

He ended up driving seven hours to her house to only talk to her for a couple of minutes in order to get some closure. However, after leaving she sent Roosevelt a sour text which left them on a bad note. But, what really sealed the deal was what he found out a couple weeks later. 

“I got a call from one of my best friends, who lives in Seattle, and he said he was talking to one of his work friends who was going to some girl’s Fourth of July party,” he said. “My best friend asked who the girl was and it was the same exact girl I was seeing.” 

Although Roosevelt wasn’t expecting to get into his first, serious relationship during a global pandemic, he also wasn’t expecting to get hurt. Even though the relationship didn’t end well, there were still good experiences and fun adventures that they both experienced together. Roosevelt definitely dodged a bullet and grew a little stronger than he was before.

“There’s always been an invisible string tying us together” 

This sweet love story is a testimony that love is still out there and that one can still find love over what feels like the most isolating time in one’s life. These two love birds made some sparks fly in a place that is characterized by too many missed shots: the DMs or direct messaging. However, this time someone shot and scored. 

After just going through a breakup before COVID-19 sent students home, Juliet  Capulet* got a DM from someone she had never seen before, but who also went to USD. His name was Romeo Montague.* She at first didn’t think the DM meant anything, until Montague DM’ed her once more and they began messaging each other back and forth. After messaging each other for a while, Montague asked her to FaceTime so that the two could get to know each other a little more. 

They found out that they were in the same grade, lived in the same building in the Vistas, had mutual friends, and yet had never crossed paths. Everything felt natural between the two and they hit it off right away. 
Fast forward to late June and they FaceTime again, and Capulet explained the most bizarre coincidence that occurred. 

“I was telling him that I was going to Williamsburg in Virginia since some of my family was moving out there,” she explained. “He was absolutely shocked because it’s where he currently lives and because the town is so small.” 

Capulet practically became giddy when explaining the story of the two meeting for the first time in Virginia.

“I had told my whole family about how much we had in common and how our values all aligned together, and they encouraged me to meet him and hang out with him when we were in Virginia,” she said. “He ended up picking me up from my family’s house and met my entire family that same day.” 

She then explained what happened when they went out together. 

“I wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, I still was trying to catch a vibe if he and I were leaning towards friends or more than friends,” Capulet said. “It wasn’t until we were watching the sunset after dinner that it felt like a very romantic, flirty scene. We ended up kissing, and both realized that we weren’t just friends and wanted something more.” 

Capulet shared that she always thought of herself as a hopeless romantic and always imagined meeting someone in a very romantic, almost straight out of the movies type of way. But, to actually experience something like this, and to immediately feel so strongly about someone upon seeing them for the first time felt so surreal to her.  

“I had extremely strong feelings for him and was just so drawn to him. I had never felt that way before, especially on a first date,” Capulet said. “But after that first date, we both expressed that we couldn’t see each other as just friends anymore.”

Capulet said that they were so surprised to have met each other first in Virginia, also known as “The State of Lovers,” rather than in San Diego. 

“I never ever expected that I could meet someone coming out of a relationship and especially not during this pandemic,” Capulet said. “I had the mentality of ‘I’m done looking for something, I’m just gonna let it come to me,’ which is so funny because it actually happened and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.” 

Because they both go to USD and never saw each other once before, Capulet said that their story seems like the epitome of the saying “everything happens for a reason.” Romeo inevitably found his Juliet. 

“Now we’ve been dating for two months and we still talk about how perfect everything fell together for us to meet,” Capulet explained. “I always think of it as there was an invisible string tying us together all along.”