Ask The Bee: COVID Operation

Dear Bee,

LOVING your content. Thank you for keeping us entertained during this crazy time. The new website is amazing! 

I’m hoping you’ll pick this letter as the first “Ask the Bee” for the new site!

I’m 28 years old and I was fixed up with a guy about a month ago by a mutual friend of ours, and we’ve gone on three amazing dates. It’s the first time in a LONG time that I’ve been this excited about a guy. Each date lasted for hours and I think we have great chemistry. I didn’t sleep with him, but I really want to. 

Enter Corona. And everything has come to a halt, including my dating life.

 I’m afraid we’re going to lose momentum in this insanity. I’m dying to see him and he’s only 20 blocks away. We both live alone and we’ve been working from home for about a week now. We haven’t had a conversation about exclusivity,  but what if this is my future husband? 

What would you do, Bee? I’m DYING to see him. 

Love,

Isolated and Infatuated

Dear Isolated and Infatuated, 

There is nothing more exciting than those first few dates that feel like the beginning of something with promise is on the verge of happening. I remember it well. The butterflies, the late night talks, the lingering warm, soft kisses that go on for hours, sigh, there is nothing better. My heart goes out to you that COVID 19 has brought that to a screeching halt. But as you already know, it’s brought lots of wonderful things to a screeching halt, and luckily for you, falling in love doesn’t have to be one of them. 

High school graduations are in jeopardy, weddings are being canceled, in Italy funerals cannot take place; the world is a sad, strange planet right now, and yet right outside my window where I sit writing to you in Pound Ridge, NY, daffodils are poking their yellow heads out of the earth and turning their faces to the sun. Miracles are continuing to find a way and so of course will love. 

You already know, cutie pie (or you wouldn’t be writing me now, would you?), that seeing him and breaking this quarantine is the wrong thing to do. Like all good things, waiting will be worth it or it won’t prove to be worth the wait, in which case it will really feel shitty if you break this mandated isolation for him.

I just said to a dear girlfriend the other day this is the shit that is going to make or break relationships. True character will be revealed 100x over, marriages will strengthen or weaken, children will rise to the challenge of remote learning or sink, friendships will be tested. AND there will be love. I am well aware that hookups are important and the need to be physical and hold someone and connect feels even more important right now. There will be a place and a time, but now you have a unique opportunity that many never will.

Connect.

Talk. 

Be a little old fashioned.

Not in a granny panties sort of way, but in a sexy, quarantined “we’re gonna tell our kids about this one day” sorta way.

Long, sleepy, sexy late night talks that last for hours are your love currency right now AND I’m a little jealous!!! You have an opportunity to force things to slow down, to percolate, to simmer, and by the time this thing blows over, if you play your cards right and he does too, it’s gonna be Fourth of July fireworks built on a foundation of a shared, fucked up experience that exists not on sand, but on quarantined concrete. That shit is solid! 

So why not shower, throw some pink lippy (click here for Jule’s favorite) and your skinny jeans (click here for Jule’s favorites) on (quarantine’s version of a prom dress) and walk to meet him. 10 blocks for him, 10 blocks for you, cell phones in hand, and just talk from across the street? Don’t you see? You’re MEG RYAN in every Nora Ephron romantic comedy ever written. OH GOD, I wanna push you down a Lysoled elevator shaft and do this for you!!!! 

Sigh….

Ok, here’s your “big sis” talking now. Your Jewish overprotective “big sis” in the woods of Westchester saying this to you.This could move fast, this could be uber intense (just like Corona!), and you, my love, better make sure you’re both on the same page. After three dates and a pandemic do you have the right to know if he’s seeing other people? I kinda think you might soon. 

So have the phone sex, have the deep conversations, have a cup of coffee and a cigarette the next morning for all I care (actually I do care, smoking is vile, makes you smell like ass and ages you, in particular around your mouth and eyes, but I digress); just know that this a weird ass moment in time and once this virus passes (and it will) so might this dalliance.

So have fun, but guard your heart a little too. Go ahead, fall in love, but if you can keep one foot on the ground and preferably wear a harness and a helmet, I’d feel better. And in the meantime, and while shipping is, well, still shipping, grab a hitachi magic wand (Click here for Jule’s favorite “back massager,” as featured in The Goop Lab on Netflix) , there’s no better time for self love. 

Xx Bee

Dating getting you down? Friendship in a frenzy? Mother-in-law making you mashugana ?? Nothing is off limits. Everything is anonymous. Ask The Bee HERE!

Illustrations by @courtneycoloring