How has your dating life been affected by the pandemic? Is it harder to meet people?I haven’t been single for a great deal of the pandemic, but my dating philosophy is that I try not to go out of my way to meet people, and just let things happen. I tend to find when I just focus on looking after myself and investing in my career and friendships, people sort of gravitate towards that. A watched pot never boils, etc.

Why did you decide to abandon dating apps? I first realised that I probably needed to ditch the apps when I found myself using them specifically to find people I already knew. I think that’s because I feel like I need to be excited about the person I’m dating, and I find it really difficult to be properly excited about someone I met on an app. I think a lot of my feelings of attraction come from seeing someone in context – the way they carry themselves, the way they relate to their friends and how they fit into their own life. Unfortunately, I’m also a messy bitch who lives for drama and I like being able to tell a friend I’m going on a date with XYZ, or feel a fun sense of camaraderie with the person who introduced us.

BERTY, 26

VICE: Has your usual method of meeting people been impacted by the pandemic?Berty: I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily impacted it in terms of how I meet people – it’s just that I don’t really do much of the stuff I used to before, like go clubbing. It’s mostly just been through my mates trying to hook me up with someone they know – which went quite horribly a few times if I’m honest. I think I prefer to meet new people through friends… I don’t really put myself in situations where I would meet complete strangers that often.

Has any romance blossomed from your encounters? Not really any “romance”, but I’ve had a few funny encounters. I once met a girl at a mutual friend’s house by chance, and she invited me back to her place. I woke up in the morning without a single recollection of what had happened after we drank a bottle of tequila – all I knew was that my head was throbbing and so were my arse cheeks. I crawled out of bed to go to the bathroom to inspect the damage, which is when I found that the bedroom floor was covered in an array of spanking and whipping equipment. My first thought was “not bad for a first date”, if you could call it that, but nothing really came of it and we never saw each other again.

Have you ever tried using the apps?I was always against the idea of being on a dating app, because it’s much nicer meeting people in real life and knowing whether you were attracted to someone or not, or them to you. One of my mates made a profile on one of the apps for me by force, but I had it for about six months before I got rid of it. I did go on a few dates from it, but I soon realised that I much prefer meeting people in real life situations.

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