Love in the Time of Covid-19 – Brennan and Agata

Brennan drives a bus in Appleton, Wisconsin. Agata is a recruiter from Krakow, Poland. In March of 2020, the world shut down because of the pandemic. To raise people’s spirits, the folks at the Tinder dating app decided to offer their Tinder Worldwide Paid Service for free. It was a chance for users to connect with people in a world that had stopped all travel. Normally confined to matching with singles in a certain radius of one’s location, all of a sudden ladies and gents could swipe left, or swipe right, on anyone with a Tinder account from anywhere around the world.

Agata scrolled through Brennan’s profile and was immediately drawn to his dark features and trimmed stubble. Something in his eyes projected a calm strength and his half-rimmed glasses imparted a wisdom gained from experience but housed in a youthful frame – a combination that seemed to strike just the right balance between serious and silly.

Brennan scrolled through Agata’s profile and melted at the sight of her Slavic beauty. Thick framed glasses resting upon plump cheekbones and supported by cascading chestnut hair, Agata combined the graceful presence of a female professional with the bubbles and cheer of the girl next door.

Agata moved her work from the office to her home. Brennan kept up his routes but the world had changed. Days passed as spring dragged on and cases rose around the world before settling over the summer.

Agata and Brennan matched on Tinder and began sending messages between Appleton and Krakow. After a few messages, they moved from Tinder to sending messages on WhatsApp and chatting over video. After just a few weeks, they began chatting every day. After a couple of months, despite the time difference, chatting together was built into the routines of their respective days.

As autumn approached, cases began to rise again as people in North America and Europe braced for a second wave. Certain travel corridors were still open, but there were a limited number of places that both Brennan and Agata were allowed to travel to and that were open for travellers without imposing any quarantine. They agreed to meet in Tirana, Albania and spend two weeks travelling the country together.

Brennan and Agata rented a car and travelled from the capital to the southern riviera. By the time they reached Sarandë, Brennan got down on one knee, presented Agata with a ring, and proposed marriage. Brennan was certain that Agata was the one even before he had decided to make the trip and see her face to face and in the flesh for the first time. Agata was also equally certain and, though delighted at the gesture, had half-expected the proposal to come days earlier.

 In April, almost one year since matching on Tinder, Agata sat in the restaurant of the Senigallia Hotel in Skopje eating a bowl of pasta waiting for the morning to come and for her fiancé to arrive. The second wave had crippled the psyches of many European nations and, with the growing promise of a vaccine coming to market, many countries had tightened their borders hoping to hold on and limit cases as much as possible until they could begin their immunization campaigns. Though cases had been on the rise for several weeks in North Macedonia – there was a curfew and dining establishments were only open to hotel guests or for takeaway – the country had refused to close its borders and so Agata and Brennan coordinated their vacation days and agreed to meet again.

The following day, Brennan arrived and he and Agata were reunited at the little hotel shaped like a wooden sailing ship sitting by the banks of the Vardar river. The excitement of being physically next to his future wife was enough adrenaline to keep all of the symptoms of jetlag at bay. With most tourism closed, but for a lone dark stranger who kept to himself, Brennan and Agata had the hotel and the restaurant to themselves.

They had a limited number of days that they could spend together and they planned to make visits to Lake Ohrid and Matka Canyon and explore the country as much as they could. But the real objective was just to be together. They knew that it would probably be a while before they could actually tie the knot, but they weren’t in any rush. The pandemic had not only kept people from travelling, but it had also complicated matters for those hoping to get married. Eager to avoid sham marriages paid to extricate individuals from pandemic hotspots, the governments of many countries had extended waiting periods and instituted new restrictions and added new barriers of red tape for couples to weave through.

The pandemic could prevent them from having a wedding and it could complicate how to even make it possible for them to be physically in the same space, but love knows no frontiers. Love is a freedom no government can steal. It requires no stamp in a passport and, thanks to modern technology, it can find its way across oceans. After a year of living with the coronavirus, humankind has learned that the barriers we erect to keep the evil out can only keep it at bay for so long. The antidote is to let love in and love is the vaccine we need now more than ever. Brennan and Agata arm in arm, strolling across Stone Bridge and through the Old Bazaar and past shops that had been closed for months, with the love that no virus can stop, living in this moment, and knowing that a day beyond tomorrow will separate them but cannot keep them apart.