Dating : Love in Quarantine — Couple Edition

You can spot the wet towel on the bed every day. The study looks like a cyclone has hit the room. Bathroom slippers are to be found all over the house except the bathroom. Zillions of packets of cool ranch Doritos all over the place.

This is our life right now. As we both are being quarantined with full-time jobs in a tiny apartment.

Let’s start the day with no coffee because no one gets up to make coffee.

I usually wake up at 11 am and by that time he has already finished two packets of Doritos, one swiss roll, and some random chocolates. Work kicks in after that and by the time I can take some time for breakfast; guess what it’s already lunchtime. Also, no one makes lunch unless it’s the weekend.

So, we order food online and eat whenever we are free. Yeah like one might be in a meeting and other not. And when the other has a meeting the significant one wants to eat.

His office hours wrap up at around 6 pm and he desperately hunts snacks by then. There goes another round with frozen yogurt, random sugar treats, and all of my sugar cookies.

I wrap my work at around 8 pm and find him playing counter strike. You can find him playing every night from 6 to 8 pm.

“Hey, roomie what should we eat?”,

I ask around 8:45 because I want a proper dinner at least.

“I am fine with anything.”,

he casually confirms always and from then on we always have the following conversation thread-

Me — “Pasta?”

He — “But we both like different sauces.”

Me — “Rice?”

He — “But have to watch those carbs”

Me — “Chinese?”

He — “Requires a lot of work”

After 15 minutes of pondering dinner ideas, I decide by checking what’s in the pantry and refrigerator. We end up having mostly something similar to Bubble and Squeak.

While the exhausted me is getting the dinner ready, he cleans the house.

Yes, that makes me smile a little every night seeing him diligently picking up the trash and disposing of them. Taking the trash out, dusting all the possible corners.

We sit down and for probably the only meal together and watch Netflix. Right now we are submerged in Castlevania. We finish our meal exactly within half an hour.

After we gobbling down our dinner we go back to the usual “ roommate stage “, completely ignoring the significant other’s existence in the house. He watches his animes and I sit down to write my articles or to read a book.

There is a beautiful silence around that time in my house, like the perfect setting for my satirical thoughts to flow. I usually fall asleep while reading a book. And we get up again to repeat this cycle with another monotonous day.

Every night without fail I would sleep with my glasses on and with a book in my hand. Yet every morning I wake up tucked in the blanket peacefully.

Weekends are more or less the same, we sleep a little more, try to make his favorite banana pancakes, watch Netflix, and play video games throughout the day.

Sometimes we talk about anything and everything. Sometimes we dance(AC/DC is our favorite) and on a rainy night, we dance to the tunes of “Nossa Vez” and “Made in Abyss”.

On one such rainy night, he held me tight in his arms and sighed,

“I am a bit sad that you couldn’t go home but I don’t know how I could have maintained sanity amidst all this, without you.”

I still feel the Butterflies whenever he compliments me(even though I end up being in my PJs 24/7 with a messy bun). I also agree that there are days when we(despite staying in the same house) don’t talk to each other at all. But that face at the end of the day, those giggles and dances have somehow made us realize that; a partner who is there for you no matter what is so important for solace.

A love that is true and lies in the simple, stupid ways of being there with a warm hug.