GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — She was single and ready to mingle.
“It was great,” explains Renae Torres-Mares. “I had a date every other weekend!”
Back on the market for the first time in 33 years, the 52-year-old Holland native was enjoying being wined and dined. Then, just like that, it at all stopped.
“It’s horrible out there,” she said. “Everyone is scared, you’re scared, I’m scared. Nobody wants to test it right now. You don’t go out.”
Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, her dating life took a hit. She thinks finding new love now is next to impossible, but sexologist Megan Stubbs says there is a way.
“We have to turn to technology to meet people and right now there are a plethora of apps to help you connect with someone,” Stubbs said.
You’ve likely heard of the big ones: Match.com, eHarmony, Tinder and Bumble. All are great ways to find a date, but to actually go on a date during quarantine, you’re both going to have to think outside the box.
“Maybe that means virtual dinners, maybe that means virtual experiences together,” Stubbs says. “It’s not necessarily worse than it was before, it just is more trying to be creative."
In a sense, it’s like being in a long distance relationship. They can work but you have got to work for it.
“If you make the communication digitally a priority, then you can be present,” Stubbs says. “If you have a set date where you know we are face timing, that’s it and you block that time out, that’s prioritizing your relationship."
A relationship, Torres-Mares can still get.
“I’m not going to give up,” she exclaims.
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