Abstract
We interviewed 31 individuals about their online dating life and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use literature on risk and health behaviors to generate four frames for dealing with risk associated with COVID-19 while dating: 1) Unconcerned about Risk, 2) Preliminary Risk Assessment, 3) Active Risk Negotiation, and 4) Risk Aversion. Further, we argue that risk perception causes daters to use implicit and explicit communication about health behaviors to determine COVID compatibility, a state of being in agreement with a partner about how to best minimize risk of contracting COVID-19. Daters want to know that their partner is behaving with similar regard for health guidance and that they are doing their best to keep those in their communities safe. Though daters may transition between frames throughout the course of the pandemic, we use these four frames to identify sets of beliefs, routines, and personal health practices across our sample that have relevance for social scientists, health communication scholars, and health care practitioners.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost every aspect of our lives and increased our dependency on digital technologies, online dating technologies notwithstanding
This study focuses on how daters are using digital dating platforms to adapt to health risks and threats posed by the uncertainty and spread of COVID-19
While daters can be framed as a risk to the collective because of their propensity to propel the spread of COVID-19, we focus more on personal understanding and assessment of health risk
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost every aspect of our lives and increased our dependency on digital technologies, online dating technologies notwithstanding. Individuals who were not partnered or in committed relationships relied more heavily on virtual opportunities for encounters because of the pandemic. Social scientists have uncovered shifts in dating, romance, and marriage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Kinsey Institute (Garcia, 2020) found that though people were having less sex during the pandemic, they became more creative about their sex lives with many of them adopting virtual tools to broaden their sex lives. Faced with the prospect of extended loneliness for the foreseeable future, many turned to online dating looking for safer ways to make new friends and connect with others during the “early days” of the pandemic
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