How to be Romantic During a Worldwide Pandemic, Part Deux
Happy New Year! And more importantly, happy 658th day of 15 Days to Slow the Spread!
Roughly 655 days ago I wrote an article titled How to be Romantic During a Worldwide Pandemic. Quite some time has elapsed since its publishing, so I figured it was time to update the guidelines for romance in the COVID era.
Without further ado, the Let’s Digress Institute for Romantic Endeavors (L-DIRE) presents How to be Romantic During a Worldwide Pandemic, Part Deux.
Disclaimer: Much like the past and current CDC guidelines, my romantic recommendations here are fairly arbitrary and don’t have much data to back them up. But don’t fret, what they lack in data they more than make up for in blatant incompetence and/or political motives.
1) Get vaccinated together
If you have your eye on a prospective romantic partner and either of you are unvaccinated, have underlying health problems, or are over the age of 65 and need a booster, have a vaccination date! Nothing legitimately screams romance like syringes, needles, and injections of substances into various muscle groups in a semi-public setting.
I know, I know, injections aren’t generally thought of as being romantic… but have you ever watched Breaking Bad? That show had injecting of some sort in basically every episode and everyone loved watching it. You’ll be lauded for your pop-culture perspicuousness.
Plus, since you’ll have the vaccination card for the rest of forever, you’ll always have a government-approved reminder (and vaccine lot number) of when that first date with your special someone was.
2) Isolate together
If you and the potential parent of your future offspring are unsure if things will work out in the long run or not, have a short-term trial period. To do this, you’ll need to get COVID or COVID symptoms, which isn’t without some risk (but everything is a COVID symptom now, so yay for that I guess). To start, go lick a random doorknob at a hospital, urgent care, or grocery store so you’ll both have COVID or a potentially worse disease, and isolate together for the newly-recommended 5 days. If you both still like each other after the quarantine period, there may just be some good quality relationship roots that you two can put down.
This would’ve been a terrible idea with the previous recommendation of a 10-day quarantine. Nearly two weeks is much too long to be stuck in a house with someone whom you’re not legally bound to. But fortunately, 5 days is much more doable.
3) Create a joint social media account
We all know the most trusting relationships have joint social media accounts. Ask your future Married-Filing-Jointly person if they’d be open to creating a single social media account for you both. If they say no, then you know the relationship just isn’t meant to be.
If they say yes, jump on that romantic opportunity! Once the combined social media account is created, you both can make a date night of berating people online with your political and COVID opinions (but I repeat myself). If the people you berate don’t appreciate it, just tell them your significant other was the one who posted it.
4) Report maskless people to the CDC together
Invite your Bonnie or Clyde to go on a snitching date. The date is simple: You both go on a date to any populated place (movie theater, mall, baseball game, large political protest, etc.), take a few pictures of the maskless people you see, then call the CDC at 800-232-4636 and tell them you would like to report a maskless person.
If you’re really feeling rambunctious, tell the maskless people that you’re reporting them to the CDC and strongly but politely encourage them to wear a mask.
5) Adopt a puppy together
I’ve been told by crazy people that having a puppy and having a baby are basically the exact same thing and that anyone who wants a baby should be required to have a dog first.
Being someone who has both, I can assure everyone that they’re not remotely the same, but I digress.
However, Dr. Fauci seems to have a tendency to buy puppies for various medical experiments and whatnot, and that’s problematic. You and your future dog dad or dog mom should adopt a puppy together because if you have a puppy then that means Dr. Fauci doesn’t have that puppy to do experiments on.
If your super-duper pooper scooper puppy co-parent isn’t into this idea, then the relationship just wasn’t meant to be and they’re basically complicit in puppy experiments.
If you follow these romance tips, you and your romantic interest are guaranteed to take your relationship to the next level. Or possibly contract some sort of pathogen. Or be committed to a four-legged friend for the next decade or so.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/articles/15-days-slow-spread/