So you think you've met the "One"

This lockdown is so cramping our style?

Meeting the "one" before/after a lockdown. 

The coronavirus crisis is putting all our relationships to the test, from home-working couples juggling emails and childcare to unattached friends trying to offer mutual support remotely, at a time when many without partners feel more single than ever.

But some have really thrown themselves in at the deep end and are navigating the “new normal” with people they’ve never previously lived with or have only just met. Some have called the trend “corona cuffing”, others are dubbing these couples “coronnials”.

The vibration of a mobile phone breaks the silence of a motionless Milan night. At a dinner table set for one, Giulio clears his voice before answering. Lorenzo, his Tinder date, appears on Giulio’s cracked iPhone screen wearing a black hoodie and a black earring – he seems to be smiling behind his thick beard but there is silence on the line. Perhaps he’s embarrassed, thinks Giulio, or maybe it’s the poor internet connection. A moment passes, then Lorenzo breaks the silence. “Hey ciao,” he says, “Sorry I’m late.” “It’s okay,” says Giulio, “I don’t have to go anywhere.” 

Giulio considers himself a master of dating in ordinary life, but for now he has to settle for on-screen flirting. He misses the warmth of a handshake or the electric feeling of a kiss, he told me when we spoke, though one thing has become easier about meeting new people: finding an ice-breaker is not a problem. He listens as Lorenzo describes his days in quarantine: alarm at 8am, push-ups in the living room at 9am, remote working until 6pm, a nightly chat with parents, then an episode of Netflix crime drama “Ozark” before bed. Lorenzo launches into a description of his third day under quarantine when Giulio interrupts: it’s all starting to sound a bit repetitive.

If there is a positive side to the lockdown, Giulio thinks, it’s that it has paradoxically broken down barriers: everyone is stuck in the same situation, living the same emotions, having the same thoughts, asking the same questions. He wants to see Lorenzo again, but chooses not tell him when, for now. After an hour-long video call, they hang up with a hasty “talk to you soon.” Giulio – with slicked back hair, white shirt, pyjama pants, furry slippers and wearing Gucci perfume no one will smell – rises to stretch his legs. The lights of Milan wink at him through the window. In the deserted street a pharmacy clock reads 22.52. There is plenty of time for a cigarette before his next date of the evening. 

Italy was the first European country to impose a nationwide lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic, banning public gatherings and closing schools and universities in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. Lombardy, which has been quarantined since March 8th, is the hardest-hit region. It has recorded around 14,000 cases of infection and over 2,000 deaths so far. Milan, a city of 1.3m (and over 1,700 cases of infection), is in the heart of it. On March 11th, as the death toll rose dramatically across the country, a government decree imposed the closure of businesses, restaurants and bars and placed severe restrictions on people’s movement, allowing them to travel only for “essential” reasons. As Giulio put it to me when we talked about his online date: “Che sbatti!”– Milanese slang for “It sucks!” But life – and love – goes on.

I have not seen my friends since the first day of lockdown, so I decided to arrange an “aperichat”. Aperitivo via Skype has become Milanese’s first antidote to abstinence from social life and, of course, from beer: groups of friends meet on video calls to drink and chat as if they were sitting around a bar table. It’s not a date and my friends and I don’t need to break the ice, yet the conversation always begins in the same way: “Well, how’s the lockdown going?”

A guy ,  with an unrequited passion for guitar, tells us about his attempt to emulate those who, in the last few days, have been singing songs together on balconies all over Italy. “Yesterday I went out on my balcony and started to play Guccini,” he says , “but the only reaction I got came from an old neighbour who pulled down the shutter. I pictured her thinking: ‘Wasn’t coronavirus enough? What have I done to deserve such a punishment?’” Mirko, a freshly married salesman, tries to push Edoardo and his girlfriend to tie the knot: “Now that you’re sitting around the house, you can finally propose,” he says on the screen. Edoardo blushes and tilts his curly head until it is out of the Skype frame. Federico runs to his rescue: “You’re lucky you can’t go out and buy an engagement ring.” The quarantine is putting many relationships under strain (lawyers have said they expect a spike in divorces after the crisis is over) but despite being trapped 24/7 with their partners for the first time, so far my friends are proving the strength of their bonds.

Final Thoughts