The 10 People (And Objects) You’ll Date In Quarantine
Your house plant is probably gaslighting you.
1. Your mail carrier
Sure, most of your dates consist of brief conversations carried out from several feet apart, but he brings you things — gifts! — each time he visits. And such good taste! He never wraps them, but you don’t blame him for that; he’s busy, for God’s sake. Plus, there’s something thrilling about dating an essential worker.
2. Your house plant
Eventually, you’ll determine that it has been gaslighting you by faking its own suicide every time you turn your back on it for more than thirty minutes, but you’ll recall your brief honeymoon period fondly; you gave it tap water and mediocre New England sunlight, and it made you feel like Ina Garten (instead of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who you’re really starting to feel like these days).
3. The DoorDash delivery woman
She knows that the best way to someone’s heart is through their stomach, and you know that the best way to keep this rather fragile relationship alive is to continue ordering Pad Thai on delivery apps for basically every meal. I bet she has a really nice smile under that mask, you fantasize, as you tip 10%.
4. Your Netflix subscription
You’ve been dating for several years, but quarantine has really strained this long-term relationship. When asked if you’re still watching after six hours, you think you catch a hint of insinuation — condescension, even — in the tone.
5. Your shadow
Almost perfect, except he’s too passive; you like a partner who takes the lead every once in a while. It’s a fling that fizzles when you realize he’s so cripplingly codependent that he can’t even handle going to the bathroom alone.
6. Your Roomba autonomous vacuum
Finally, someone that cleans up after themselves. He’s nice enough and very respectful, but the neatness is a little obsessive; when you stop and think about it, his slow, mincing movements and his strange, devotional purr are actually kind of creepy. He goes too far one time, sweeping up the Pringle crumbs off the carpet, which you’d been planning on surreptitiously grabbing and (again, surreptitiously) eating at the next commercial break.
7. The guy who always walks in and out of the room in the background of your coworker’s Zoom screen
He seems nice. He’s always bringing her food or coffee. Though you don’t know his name, you refer to him as Ralph, and you often play out elaborate fantasies in your head in which Ralph is bringing you bowls of reheated white bean chili and making you laugh by saying something inaudible offscreen before padding out of the room softly on his bare feet.
8. The New York Times homepage
She’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever dated. Each day she shows up with dozens of stories and fresh, insightful takes on current events. She’s so informed. She talks about people and places you’ve never heard of. And so many opinions! Some of her stories get a little long, and occasionally she can be a little in-your-face about how “woke” she is, and sometimes she can be a bit of a downer (it’s like, I get it, an entire state is on fire and the whole country is sick and a historically disenfranchised segment of the population literally has to protest against state-sanctioned murder and the president doesn’t really seem to care about any of it, but can’t we just talk some more about that charming couple that settled on a one-bedroom in Chelsea?), but she’s really good at putting your personal problems into perspective.
9. The disembodied voice on your meditation app
At first, he sounds handsome, like a distinguished professor, and you think maybe this is the healthiest relationship you’ve ever been in. But you become less enthusiastic when he starts asking you to donate to his Patreon so he can buy a cither for the solstice resurrection of the sun-god Ra during the commercial breaks. And seriously, where does he get off being so calm at a time like this?
10. Your actual partner
It’s been so long since you’ve left the house that you’ve come to see each other not as individual human beings capable of mutual affection but as extensions of your home furniture. One day, though, you remember. To celebrate this recollection of your long term commitment you open the seven-dollar bottle of red wine you’ve been saving for an occasion (any occasion) and drink the entire thing, which quickly leads to a fight where a lot of quarantine frustration gets misdirected into personal attacks about the ways in which you’re really starting to resemble your respective parents. You angrily do a load of laundry together (it’s mostly sweatpants) and then fall asleep on the couch (which you’ve been referring to as your “living room bed”) while Everybody Loves Raymond hums in the background.
