Love in the new millennium is a loaded topic.
Love during the coronavirus pandemic is how I have experienced this loaded topic.
My dance with love has been typical of my generation, or at least it was right up until the pandemic started. Coronavirus shook every aspect of my life to its very core. I feared for the safety of my family and my friends. I worried about what the world would look like in this new phase. Finding any long-term romantic attachment was the last thing on my mind. Besides, I never really harboured a flame for traditional romantic narratives when it came to myself. Maybe it’s because I come from a village where everyone knows each other, so they miss out on the fairy-tale of the stranger across the bar. Perhaps I was just grumpy or unlucky, or maybe it was both. I wasn’t expecting my romantic prospects to take an upward shift when the pandemic put the U.K. on lockdown in March 2020. I was in my final year of University at Strathclyde and preparing for a Masters at St. Andrews. When I got there, the darkening nights brought a resurgence of coronavirus. I decided to rent a room on the outskirts of town. The University added an extra layer of restrictions on top of the government-mandated ones. So, aside from my two roommates, I didn’t interact with many people in person.
My fate changed when I met Tanishka on Tinder. She was in her final year at St. Andrews after taking a year off and living back home in Mumbai. She never went on a date during her time at University because studying ranked higher on her list of priorities. She was only meant to have the Tinder account for the weekend. I was so lucky to be one of the people she swiped right on in that short window of opportunity. I also haven’t been on many first dates before, as all my previous relationships have been with people I already knew in some capacity. And suddenly, before me was a girl, I started to talk to and had asked out in less than 24 hours. My initial idea for a date had been negatively affected by the pandemic, so we opted to go out for drinks instead. We went to a pub I used to go to as a wee boy with my uncles to watch football on holiday.
Tanishka was even more beautiful in person than in her several drop-dead gorgeous Tinder photos. She is also a medical student who speaks four languages (In Scotland, this is enough for you to be considered a linguistic god). Her laugh made me laugh. Her smile made me smile. You know that warm feeling you get when you’re sitting at home in the winter? The heat is on, and the blanket is sitting perfectly on your lap? That’s the feeling I had throughout the entire date. We talked about University, politics, our massive families, friends, favourite films, shows and books. She told me how much she loved St. Andrews, Fife and Scotland. I laughed and said she had seen the part we showed to tourists. She laughed at me for thinking she was American. For the first time in a long time, I forgot that we were in the middle of a pandemic. I walked her home, and we sat outside her dorm for two hours and talked some more. Pandemic regulations did not allow me in as a non-resident, but we made it work. Her dorm was close enough to the sea, and you could hear the crashing of the waves. I had only known this girl for 48 hours, but it felt like I’d known her for years. I even blurted out the question regarding a second date. Eventually, Sunday turned to Monday, and we had to bid each other farewell. Instead of being smooth and cool, we decided to go for an awkward dance. In other words, when I went in for a kiss, she went in for a hug. Laughing, we tried again with the roles reversed, making us laugh even more. Third time is the charm, I suppose. I still laugh when I think about it.
If you think that our date went off pretty good, rest assured, dear reader, that I am about to annoy Tanishka for the first time at this point in the tale. My roommate Colin asked me how my date went and what she was like. He advised me to play it cool when I told him I liked her. He told me not to text her and said I should wait half the day, so I don’t look desperate. You tend to listen when advice is delivered to you in a smooth West Irish accent. It was only later that I discovered that she spent an entire lunch hour with her, ranting to her friends about me not texting her until 4 pm the next day.
We met again at Northpoint cafe, the pancake place where Prince William and Kate met. We could only get a table outside due to restrictions. For those reading this outside Scotland, eating outside in this country is daft. Eating outside in October when the parties wear a t-shirt, jeans, and a summer dress is idiotic beyond measure, but we didn’t care. I still can’t remember being cold. I remember being mortified when my parents and younger brother walked past us and had to explain that this was not planned frantically. I want to reiterate that it was our second date. And in walked my dad, my mum and my wee brother on holiday in the caravan park just outside town. Now I’m an honest man, and when faced with this dilemma, I decided there was no other option but to greet my family reluctantly. Either that or let my mum’s increasingly excited face give the game away.
After a lengthy repetition of me saying this wasn’t planned, we took a walk on the beach and then went to a bookstore for tea. Whenever I’m asked, I refer to this as the moment we both started genuinely falling in love. Maybe it was another round of conversation, or perhaps it was that we had spent most of the morning together and were letting our guard down. Maybe it was the fact that this was the first place we’d found that would allow us inside to sit. Maybe it was because our relationship was progressing fast, and we were already at the meeting the parents’ phase. I don’t know. All I know is that the time we spent in the bookshop is perfectly preserved in my mind in a way that a lot of my memories from the pandemic are not. When lockdown hit, I felt forgetful, overwhelmed and unable to concentrate. I didn’t even need to try on this date. The memory of the bookshop is crystallised in my mind as though in amber. Tanishka later told me that she had butterflies in her stomach during our time together. We eventually had to leave and go our separate ways, but I stumbled into yet another faux pas. I was sitting in my car with Tanishka outside her dorm and was still scarred from our many attempts at a first kiss the other night. I was worried that I was coming off too strong, so I tried to be polite and not kiss her to spare her from the awkwardness and pressure. She, later on, told me that this was a daft decision. She said that she stayed in the car for an extra 20 minutes in hopes that I would make a move.
Our third date took a twist. It seemed probable that there would be an increase in restrictive measures, so we wanted to take advantage of our current freedom. In the run-up to this date, I discovered that Tanishka is chaos manifested in human form. She was not satisfied with sitting outside in the October winds for breakfast in summer outfits. She wanted to go into the North Sea in October and Scotland at night. You know that thing everyone does early on in a relationship where they say yes to everything? This is what happened to me. We made our plans for what has to be the strangest date I’ve ever been on. We arrived at the beach at 8 pm. It was pitch black, and the tide had gone out. It was about a 15-minute walk to the sea from the car park. Also, given how shallow the sea was, getting out to water deep enough to cover our knees was an extra ten-minute walk. So there we were, two people dressed in summer bathing suits strolling to the sea. It must have been quite a sight.
Here’s a tiny piece of background information on the sea and me. When I was eight years old, my dad let me watch Jaws (a horrible decision). Since then, I have been ludicrously terrified of deep waters. On top of this childish trepidation, there is the fact that she maybe had three-quarters of an entire outfit between my trunks and her bikini. Yet Tanishka pushed onward, regardless of the cold and insisting that we go further out. Never mind that the water was so cold that I couldn’t feel my legs, or it was so dark that I couldn’t tell where the sea ended and the land began. So there I was with a dilemma. I asked myself, “Do I follow this extremely attractive lassie in a bikini further into the sea or betray my Scottish heritage, plead coldness and retreat to the warmth of the tiny Citroen parked a mile away?” I picked the latter, as that was the only rational choice. She still teases me today for it before thanking me for preventing her death via hypothermia. We retreated to my house, where I watched my first Bollywood film, Dil Dhadakne Do (I am now at 14 movies and counting, my favourite being Raazi) in the balmy 30-degree temperature of my room.
After that, our relationship progressed swiftly, largely unfettered by pandemic-related obstacles. Not allowed in her dorm for Diwali? We figured out a way to celebrate it together within guidelines. Whenever we couldn’t go out for a romantic candlelit dinner, we made our own in my tiny cramped kitchen. Whenever we couldn’t go to the movies, I relocated the living room flat screen to my room, and we borrowed DVDs from the University Library. Whenever Tanishka was studying for her finals and could not leave her study room for too long, I drove down for fifteen minutes study breaks where we sat in car parks listening to the tide go out.
Eventually, December came around, and I was faced with another difficulty. Tanishka usually went home to India for holiday, but this year she would likely spend Christmas alone in her dorm due to restrictions and the absence of all her friends who were able to go home. So I did what any sensible and loving boyfriend would do, I invited her home for Christmas. It was only for eight days, as that was the time I could take off work. Whilst it might have been a bit quick to invite someone to live with my family for a week, the pandemic didn’t leave us with any other acceptable choice. We arrived in Shotts on the 17th of December. On the 20th of December, the First Minister was on the telly telling everyone to stay where we were as we were locked down. And so, my work was closed, and we were stuck in Lanarkshire for the foreseeable future. I still remember my dad turning to me (Tanishka was upstairs napping) and asking me if I would be okay. I still smile when I think about how absurdly sure I was.
I’d been dating this girl for two months, yet I was incredibly confident that we would be okay, in fact, more than okay. And that is precisely what happened. That time remains the best five weeks of my life. Tanishka met my extended family standing in driveways and doorsteps. She met my friends on a group walk to an abandoned hospital outside the neighbouring village. I had always teased her that North East Fife was what we showed to tourists. Shotts, situated in the heart of old industrial Scotland, was the real Scotland. I expected her to hate it or, at least, prefer the sunny eastern coast with its sandstone castles and international vibe. Maybe it was the fact it was covered in snow. Maybe twenty-two years living there made me cynical, but she adored it. She said it was her winter wonderland. There are so many stories from that Christmas period. In another further display of awkwardness, I met her parents over facetime and inadvertently revealed that we were dating (it’s cool, they love me). Winter wonderland or not, our relationship continued to be dictated by the pandemic. After living with one another (and my family) for months, we eventually officially moved in together in March. It wasn’t even a conversation; it just happened, seeing that she’d effectively been living with me since we came back in mid-January. It wasn’t just that, but the pandemic made it almost necessary for us to live together if we ever wanted to see one another. Thanks to the Christmas lockdown, we were relatively used to living with one another. It’s a move that most couples would never consider so soon in a relationship, but it was right for us.
One by one, she completed her exams, and we began to relax. We returned to Shotts for a weekend, and Tanishka met my extended family properly. Upon hearing that she was a medical student, they lined up to receive diagnoses of their minor to delicate medical conditions. In June, we set off to the Highlands for our first proper holiday, largely free of pandemic restrictions at this point. I failed to convince her that Nessie was real, but we still had a great time exploring the village of Drumnadrochit and Loch Ness. During the Euros, we completely lost our minds when Italy defeated England in penalties (to readers in England, I apologise, but I live by the footballing motto A.B.E., a.k.a. anyone but England). Our summer concluded with me driving her to the airport so she could go home for her sister’s roka. It was a six weeks trip, but it felt like a lifetime. I didn’t realise how much I’d come to enjoy living with someone else.
Over a year and a half later, we’re still together. This time in Manchester instead of Scotland while Tanishka finishes her studies. What does all this mean? I don’t know. The pandemic was brutal on me and harder on others. I lost interest in hobbies, grew more despondent about our political and economic system and even considered leaving the country. But there is nothing I would change about it. There is no doubt that the pandemic made it possible for me to fall in love as hard as I did. The loneliness, the enforced creativity required to come up with alternative dates, the accelerated timeframe of moving in with one another, and so much more. Since the day we met, our lives together have been made into what they are now by the pandemic. It’s been tough sometimes. I often laugh when I imagine Tansihka returning to St. Andrews from India in September to go and live with a Scottish family by mid-December. It’s so absurd that it works. Most of our relationship has been spent living together. I can tell you everything about Tanishka. I’m crazy about her, and I know she is about me.
I never thought I’d know this feeling of complete and utter love, much less find it in the middle of an unprecedented global crisis. A lot of things had to fall into place for us to meet. It took her a year out, me deciding to do a master’s at her University and being incredibly lonely on the same weekend that she created a Tinder account. All of these factors transpired to make our meeting possible. On top of that, our relationship was shaped by the pandemic. Without COVID, I probably wouldn’t have invited her home because she wouldn’t have been alone for Christmas. We wouldn’t have had to move in together to see each other regularly. And as eccentric as it all was, I wouldn’t have changed any of it even if I could.