Dating : Some Rather Random Things I Have Learned While Quarantining Mostly Alone for More than Six Months

Dry runs build character. (I just hope you don’t lose it if you don’t use it.)

Regret is made exponentially more intense by loneliness. Being consistently by yourself has a tendency to amplify the level to which you think about failures or miss someone from your past. I’ve (unfortunately) discovered that it’s entirely possible to miss someone so much that you start to yearn for the things you used to hate about them, like, for example, their yelling at you to close the goddamn fucking refrigerator door while you refill the Brita pitcher, or to turn off the TV if you’re just going to go to sleep anyway. Every day I have to remind myself that a certain person must not have been right for me, that we would not have quarantined well together — and that most anyone I could picture myself quarantining with is doing so happily (at least outwardly) with others. (So the search, it continues.)

Too much time in bed is not a great thing. Even — and probably especially — if you have a lot of time that you can potentially spend in bed. (This applies mostly to if you’re in bed alone and attempting to sleep. If you’re having a marathon sex session, well, then, as you were.)

Logistics and timing are the enemy of love. Nothing really groundbreaking here, but it’s difficult to not think about the number of opportunities I’ve missed to meet or woo the person who may have been the love of my life while I’ve been mostly forced to sit in my apartment by myself drinking whiskey and navel-gazing. Actually, right when all this happened I was on the verge of making plans to travel out of the country to visit a friend I’d been not-so-secretly pining over for years who had finally expressed some interest. Now I’ll never know what may have happened. But I do know that what may have happened could have changed my life forever. Which also means what didn’t happen changed my life forever.

Sometimes it’s more than okay to not be living, but just killing time. It’s not ideal, but it’s okay. Just because you have more free time to do things doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be doing more things, being more productive. Though, conversely, I’ve found that staying busy or at least occupied helps you worry less.

Blacking out by yourself is, while not great, better than doing so when you’re around a bunch of people and can make a complete fucking fool of yourself. (This only rings true if you stay away from your cell phone and laptop while in the midst of said blackout.)

A night spent alone can sometimes be much better than an awkward morning, even when you’re alone pretty much all the time. Just because you’re feeling lonely doesn’t mean you should settle.

You learn a lot about how you tend to interact with other human beings when you don’t often or hardly at all have the opportunity to do so. By not being able to be around people all that much and being mostly fine with it, I’ve uncovered and in some ways come to closer grips with my borderline crippling intimacy issues and flawed (at best) attachment styles (or lack thereof).

Masturbation is one way to alleviate intense boredom, even if only for a short amount of time. And even the people from Bang Bus are wearing masks now, so if you can’t put one on stay at home and fuck yourself.

When you feel like you’re not accomplishing much, start to look at completing things you enjoy as accomplishments. Pat yourself on the back when you finish binge-watching a TV show or reading a book. Scream, “Fuck yeah, that was fucking great” when you finish watching Good Will Hunting for the 18th time. Learn to gamify being alone by celebrating the little things.

Sometimes when you find yourself in a slump it’s beneficial to change things up, even if you can’t really alter too much about your circumstances, scenery or location. For example, when I was stuck at home and feeling down I decided to shake things up by nixing my beard in favor of a ridiculous mustache. It ultimately had nothing to do with anything (though nothing truly has nothing to do with anything if you really think about it), but it helped me shift my momentum. And it also served as a reminder every time I looked in the mirror that I had been taking myself too seriously, and should make a serious effort to not do so. Especially during such an absurd time.

It is possible to have relationships and friendships come into your life when you least expect it, and they might be the people you least expect to forge a relationship with. Like, the guy who delivers my half-gallon bottles of Jameson is a person I’ve interacted with in-person more than most anyone else over the past half a year, and we’ve gotten pretty tight. He always asks how I’m doing, and was genuinely surprised the one time I purchased wine instead of whiskey.

There is not a goddamn fucking thing wrong with crying a lot.