- The
coronavirus test is going to be the new STD test, the founder of a high-enddating app concierge service told Business Insider. - Amy Nobile of Love, Amy, said she had one client demand her partner get a coronavirus test before continuing to date him.
- People are adapting to a new normal of dating, in which they're being more cautious and seeing people's true colors.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Forget chlamydia or gonorrhea — singletons may now be most concerned about contracting the coronavirus from potential partners.
So says Amy Nobile, founder of high-end dating concierge service Love, Amy, who charges clients a three-month $5,000 fee to help them find
Lately, she told Business Insider, she's been holding their hand through the "new normal" of dating safely. While business came to a "screeching halt" when the pandemic first hit, she said, some have gradually continued to date — and work with Nobile — virtually. And they're exercising the utmost caution.
Consider one of Nobile's clients based in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, who required the guy she had been seeing for two months to get tested for the coronavirus in order to continue dating.
Her ever-committed partner, according to Nobile, ventured out to a drive-thru testing center outside the city. He tested negative. "The coronavirus test is the new STD test," Nobile said.
Experts' general rule of thumb during the coronavirus is that it's okay to have sex with your partner, but you can't kiss them. The coronavirus can be spread through saliva, and a late April study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility found no evidence of the virus in the semen of males recovering from COVID-19.
However, a newer study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medicine Association found the coronavirus present in the semen of both men who had active infections and those who had recovered. It's unknown, though, whether this finding means the virus can be sexually transmitted.
The coronavirus is showing people who they do and don't want to date
Coronavirus test dating requirements speaks to the larger transformation of the dating world right now. In a time when meeting up for an in-person drink is illicit, singletons are finding themselves engaging in ways they wouldn't have otherwise.
Texting and video chatting allows people to get to know each other without societal pressures and to create genuine connections, Nobile said. They're also getting a better look at people's true colors and core values.
"If you're dating someone, it's kind of make or break right now," Nobile said. "Because this is a time where you really see someone's inside. Who someone is in a crisis is really telling."
That's clear in the partner of the NYC client, who was willing to go out of his way to get a coronavirus test. And consider another of Nobile's clients, a 30-something female who had also been seeing someone for about two months when the pandemic hit. As Nobile tells it, the client's relatively new partner asked her to quarantine with him in a house he was renting in upstate New York. After talking it through with Nobile, the client decided to take a "leap of faith."
The decision, Nobile said, has fast-forwarded their relationship. The client even met his family over Zoom.
Meanwhile, others are finding out who they don't want to be with. A Philadelphia-based client found herself perturbed by how lax a man with whom she'd been on several dates was about social distancing, according to Nobile. She felt he was being irresponsible, and it drove a wedge in their relationship.
"The coronavirus is a huge relationship test," Nobile said. "It's either going to crumble or soar."
Read the original article on Business Insider