Dating pitfalls in 2021, from hot vax summer to cuffing season

Siobhan, a Brooklynite in her 40s, said 2021 was “probably the most fun” she’s had while single.

Siobhan, who is using a pseudonym to protect her privacy, had been in a two-year relationship with someone with intense COVID anxiety, which made her feel isolated; the anxiety put a strain on her own relationships with friends and family members. They broke up in June and a month after the split, she started dating again. She was vaccinated and ready to explore the dating scene in our “new normal.” 

“It was exhilarating to be able to make my own choices about how to conduct my social and romantic life,” she said. “I took on a ‘why the f not’ attitude, and made some bold choices.” She went to the beach on a first date and made out all afternoon in the sun. She got high in a park and watched the sunset with someone else; she experienced the type of revelry daters hoped for this summer.

Siobhan, like so many others, navigated an unprecedented dating field in 2021. As we entered the second year of the pandemic, masks and social distancing were routine. The internet was quick to predict a hot vax summer once vaccines became widely available in the U.S., but it didn’t pan out for everyone, even if Siobhan and others like her had theirs. Many daters instead generally reflected on what they wanted and how to get it. 

But the soul-searching wasn’t always easy as the dating scene morphed alongside the virus’ grip on our lives. The result? This year was even more of a spectacular mess than dating in 2020. 

We’re no longer on the same chaotic page 

Dating in 2020 may have been limited to virtual dates and park walks (as indoor options were shuttered in much of the U.S.), but there was some comfort in that stability. “Last year we were all on the same page,” explained Logan Ury, Hinge’s director of relationship science, “and even if that page was a sad, chaotic one, it was consistent.” 

Some daters took a break last year with the hopes that the pandemic would end soon…which, as we all know, didn’t happen. In 2021, Ury continued, we had more options for how we date (like going to the films or eating inside a restaurant), coupled with a variety of COVID comfort levels (some were willing to hang out indoors with or without masks, while others didn’t spend time indoors with a date at all). Those who took 2020 off from dating realized that if they wanted to find their person, they must still date amidst the pandemic. 

Rebecca Rranza, a graduate student in New York, didn’t take a break from dating in 2020. She estimates she went on 30 dates in 2020, though they often took place on FaceTime. After she got vaccinated this year, her dating life returned to what it was like pre-pandemic. 

“No one ever asked me if I was vaccinated and even if something like a COVID scare came up, men I dated didn’t really care,” she said. 

Singles are basically split on how much they care about vaccination status, according to a Summer of Love survey by the Kinsey Institute, a sexuality research center, and sex toy brand Lovehoney. Just over half of the 2,000 Americans surveyed, aged 18 to 45, said they’d be likely to ask someone’s vaccine status before becoming intimate. Just 18 percent said being unvaccinated was a dealbreaker. 

Hot vax summer wasn’t universal

Siobhan had her “hot vax summer,” but many didn’t. Take Sierra, who moved from Sacramento to New York in April and asked to use only her first name to preserve her privacy. Sierra broke off a casual fling in November 2020, but found herself chatting with the same man again in March 2021 — until he dropped that he had a girlfriend. 

“That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” Sierra said, and she decided to move across the country. New York hasn’t brought her any luck, though. She commented, “While there may be plenty of fish in the sea — the sea is polluted.”

Our high expectations for the summer of freedom may have led to disappointment from the start, but we also had to deal with the Delta variant and FODA, or fear of dating again. And now, amid cuffing season 2021, there’s the uncertainty around the Omicron variant. 

Hopes aside, some daters didn’t even seem to want a slutty summer. 

The media narrative of hot vax summer isn’t what the data showed Ury. “What we were seeing is that after going through the collective trauma, people said, ‘I really want to find a relationship,'” she said. People want to find deeper connections than casual hookups, to the point where 75 percent of Hinge users are looking for a relationship. This is a huge jump from Hinge data at the end of 2020, where 53 percent of respondents said they’re ready for a long-term relationship.

Hinge promotes itself as a “relationship” app “designed to be deleted,” so it makes sense that the users want to find someone, but this is an observation other dating experts made as well. The biggest 2021 takeaway for Dr. Marissa Tunis, a clinical psychologist and founder of dating coach platform Datefully, is that people are looking for meaningful connections, whether they’re romantic or platonic. 

Maybe that’s why sex isn’t a the top priority for most singles surveyed by Match. Eighty-five percent said sex is less important now than pre-pandemic, according to the dating conglomerate’s annual Singles in America survey, which polled a nationally representative sample of 5,000 American adults. When broken down by age group, 76 percent of millennials (25- to 40-year-olds) and a whopping 80 percent of Gen Z (18- to 24-year-olds) agreed that sex is less important. 

When people do have sex, they’re waiting longer: More than 70 percent of singles Match surveyed are uncomfortable with the idea of having sex on the first three dates.

“Sex is out,” said Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and chief scientific advisor at Match, “emotional maturity is in.” This means many daters are seeking meaningful connections as opposed to quick flings, and focusing on personality instead of physical traits. 

The same survey states that only 11 percent are looking for casual dates, while 62 percent are looking for a meaningful, committed relationship. This aligns with Mashable’s own hot vax summer survey, which found the most common desire among the 1,000 respondents, aged 18 to 70, was a serious relationship.

We’re questioning…everything

These observations, of course, don’t account for everyone. While some daters want to find “their person,” others realized they actually want multiple partners. Interest in ethical non-monogamy and polyamory are on the rise, as is a desire for kink and exploration. As Mashable reported in July, sex clubs like Snctm in New York have received a spike in membership applications since the vaccine.

In addition to questioning our relationship structures, pandemic self-reflection had us mulling how and who we date as a whole. For instance, almost half of Bumble users said the pandemic made them question their type. People asked themselves existential questions like what really matters in life, said Tunis. The result is now less of an emphasis on superficial characteristics in a partner, like height, and more emphasis on shared values. 

The data says the same: While 90 percent of singles in Match’s survey wanted a physically attractive partner in 2020, that number dropped to 78 percent this year. The number one trait most singles are looking for in a partner is someone they can trust and confide in.

Fisher calls this phenomenon “post-traumatic growth.” 

People are looking for stability, which makes sense, considering how COVID unhinged all our lives. More people now want a partner with a similar income level to their own than pre-pandemic: 86 percent in 2021 compared to 70 percent in 2019, according to the Singles in America survey. The desire for a partner who wants marriage jumped even higher: 58 percent in 2019 to 76 percent in 2021.

This year, daters examined their habits along with their desires, too. “My dating habits changed because I have more clarity in what I’m looking for,” said Sierra, who wants a partner. She used to be the “queen of situationships” (the nebulous space in between friendship and a committed relationship, more likely a friend-with-benefits “situation”) — whereas now she’s better at communicating her needs.

This seems to be a burgeoning trend: 79 percent of dating app Coffee Meets Bagel users find themselves being more open and honest with matches. 

Ury calls it “hardballing.” 

They didn’t want to waste time, and that instead of beating around the bush, they wanted to get at the truth of the other person’s expectations and hopes.

“Part of that came from the pandemic and people feeling like they were running out of time, they didn’t want to waste time, and that instead of beating around the bush, they wanted to get at the truth of the other person’s expectations and hopes,” she explained. 

As with any other dating fads, however, not everyone will participate. Further, people’s wants are subject to change, especially if more COVID variants emerge. 

As the seasons changed, Siobhan, is now in a “wait and see mode” when it comes to how her dating life will progress. 

The pandemic altered the trajectory of all our lives, and its ripple effects on dating are profound. If this year was any indication, 2022 will bring even more unparalleled trends.