How Do We Online Date Now that COVID-19 Became the World’s Biggest Cock Block?

One expert dater’s advice on finding love in a dangerous time….

We’re not out of COVID country just yet, but hope is on the horizon that we’ll get through this and see better days ahead. Additionally, spring is in the air, so thoughts turn to scents of love wafting through the air among the wildflowers you’ve been traipsing through on your now-daily nature hikes. While it’s not yet appropriate to swap body fluids with strangers, it may be a good time to start thinking about picking a pandemic partner with whom you might like to ride out the next quarantine.

But you’re alone. At home. How do you start online dating now that Coronavirus has become the world’s biggest cock block?

If you’re one of the unfortunate singleton souls who felt pangs of loneliness as soon as this whole mess made it uncool to ask someone out for a real in-person date (the way it should be), take comfort in the hope that you will have the chance again soon. But you can get started now. Many of us are frantically searching for ways to connect intimately with others. But many of us do it badly even when we aren’t reeling from the weight of the world.

I know all too well how bad we are at online dating. I’ve sent and received all manner of desperate attempts to connect romantically and sexually while chronicling My Year as Finstagram Model. To help you navigate the impossible task of beginning online dating during a pandemic, I put together some tips that I garnered from my experiences.

Building Your Online Dating Profile

Dating apps are a great way to find people to connect with, and they can vary quite a bit in the style of profile you create and the way your match algorithms work. My favorite happens to be OKCupid due to my age and dating interests, but I also like Match.com and Bumble. It can be an exhaustive effort just to select an appropriate platform, but once you do, there are a few things you can do to give your relative anonymity a boost to keep you safe and give you more joy and more control of how you handle who hits on you (and how) in your inbox:

1.) Build your profile with a username rather than your first name. For example, my name is Gabrielle but my dating profile utilizes only my initials: GVDV. This helps prevent potential suitors from searching your name and adding you on Facebook or another platform where you’d prefer to only correspond with your grandma or your co-workers.

2.) Build a dating profile that actually details real things about you that a potential partner might find interesting, but not so many that someone can guess your bank password after looking at your Tinder profile.

3.) Be honest with yourself when it comes to the details: Don’t say you’re 43 if you’re 58, don’t put up super old photos of yourself if you no longer look that way, and don’t misrepresent what you’re looking for… if you know. (If you don’t know, that’s okay too, but be honest about that.)

4.) When it comes to online dating, authenticity is important, but should not be held up as more important than making a positive experience for your self-esteem. When it comes to dating, you are marketing yourself, not participating in an ego-stripping experiment. Show off what you like about yourself.

So many people (especially attractive women) tell me they absolutely hate the process of dating. Especially at the beginning stages, dating should make you feel good. The photos that you choose to share on your dating profile should represent you in a way that you identify with. Don’t be afraid to be a little sexy or revealing — if that’s your personality and that’s the type of vibe you want to put out in the universe. You do you. Your confidence will shine through.

So what kind of photos do you choose that make you feel attractive and confident? Don’t overthink it: Do what works in a bar. Dress up and snap a few photos of outfits that you would go to a bar wearing. Include shots that show different angles of your face and body, and potentially a few silly ones or ones of you engaged in a hobby you enjoy. Also, a photo or two with your pets are always a good idea, but don’t ever include photos with your (or anyone’s) children and never include photos with exes.

Do-it-Yourself Spam Filter

Some daters (especially attractive women) find that the amount of potential likes and messages they receive in response to their dating profile far exceeds the quality of the responses. Many are spammers, many are scammers, and many others just aren’t being truthful about what they are looking for, thus making the process tedious as you make 500 introductions to strangers and begin the arduous journey of telling them your life story only to be ghosted, stood up, or otherwise victimized.

It can get difficult to sift through the inboxes of your various dating and social platforms each day, which is why I built my dating profile on OK Cupid with a “spam filter” that buried an Easter Egg deep in my profile for potential partners to suggest they follow me on Instagram to begin the conversation with me. The benefits to doing this were endless, but the most important reason was privacy. While we all use popular social media platforms for different purposes, it helps to utilize and conceptualize them in this way if you’re a single person looking for love: Facebook is your home where your friends a family are, LinkedIn is your office, Twitter is being out in public, and Instagram is your local bar where you’re the bartender and proprietor.

Why Instagram?

There were so many good reasons right away that I noticed about using Instagram for dating. There was the obvious — that spammers and scammers weren’t willing to put the effort into reading to the bottom of OKCupid to find my Instagram handle, jump platforms, and hit follow. So the quality of potential partners was much better on Instagram than OKCupid. I’d still occasionally check OKCupid’s inbox, but Instagram largely rendered it obsolete.

I liked that I could set my “Insta-bar” to private the way I could if I were a bouncer at a brick-and-mortar bar. Potential suitors could request to follow me, then I could briefly scan their profiles to see if they might be a match (although I accepted nearly everyone as I’m incredibly open-minded). Then I could follow them and learn more about them. Instagram had a now-removed feature that even showed me what my potential partners were commenting on other profile; this tool was incredibly valuable to snuff out cheaters. Instagram accounts can tell you a surprising amount of information about a person in a very short amount of time, especially if their settings are public. Pictures sometimes speak louder and more quickly than words, which makes it a great platform for casual dating.

On Instagram, I was in control. In addition to being a great way to meet men I found interesting, it was also amazing for my self-esteem. It became an intentional therapy for me as I was post-divorce — torn down emotionally from abuse and I felt better as the likes and comments began building me back up again. The men would come and go as they pleased if they decided they did or didn’t like me, then I could kick them out (remove as follower) if they got too rowdy or inappropriate. (I am proud enough of the quality of the guys I met to mention that in one year, only a handful ever said anything to me that was inappropriate enough to where the user needed to be blocked. Perhaps that’s the filter working.)

Running Your Insta-bar

On Instagram, build your “bar” as a an accurate reflection of the personality you’d put forth in a real bar. For me, my account was all about sex and jokes and jokes about sex, but your s should look like you. Would you flirt? Would you wear a low cut top? Would you tell a joke or share memes or personal stories? If so, post it! Then tell your potential suitors to hit up your inbox to further the conversation.

Then from there, you can keep your conversations going in your Instagram inbox instead of on a thousand different dating and social apps where messages can easily be lost or misconstrued. It frees up your Instagram for using Facebook for family and close friends and doesn’t put you on the awkward and somewhat dangerous situation of giving out your real cell phone number to someone you’ve only met online.

The Reason

For me, Instagram helped me to date multiple people at one time as I prefer to do so practicing ethical non-monogamy. While non-monogamy isn’t for everyone, learning to navigate the beginning stages of dating in a healthy way can help you find love, whether it’s with one person or many. Setting up an Instagram account to help you gain better control of your dating life can help.

So, what are you waiting for? You’ve got new tools. Snap some selfies, set up your Insta-bar, and get out there and start distance dating! Your future pandemic partner is already thanking you.

Gabrielle Dion Visca is a Cincinnati, Ohio journalist who writes about ethical non-monogamy and Instagram for Medium and is the founder and publisher of MedicateOH, a non-profit journalism publication. You can follow Gabrielle’s latest articles here.