And you're meeting someone in a moment of crisis, right, You're meeting someone in a moment where I think, especially at the beginning, I couldn't hide who I was. I couldn't really you can't have small talk. What is small talk? During COVID we are now left like really staring into each other's eyes with no frills, And I think that it forces us to think outside of the box when it comes to dating. COVID has changed basically every aspect of our daily lives, work, school, going out to eat, seeing friends, seeing family, entertaining any social lives whatsoever. Another thing that's changed dating our love lives. Some nights, after a long day of working from home, school from home, everything from home, I look at the dishes that are piled up in my sink. I listened to my kids who are not showered, haven't done their homework, are fighting like cats and dogs. And I asked myself, what would all of this be like if I was going through COVID single. Overall, quarantine and pandemic life have been isolating and lonely, even for those of us who aren't living alone. We're losing out on social interactions, personal connections, and of course, physical touch, so it's not surprising that people found a way around this and found love even from a distance. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior Correspondent, and this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and I Heart Radio. On this episode of Modern Rules, we're asking what it's like to date, find love, and have sex during COVID, and I found the perfect perfect guest for this conversation, the one and only Liz Plank. She is a superstar human, but she's also an MSNBC columnist, and she took on an amazing and very daring assignment where she chronicled part of her dating life during the early months of COVID. Liz, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited to be here with you. For so many of us who may have been mired in homework and making food, I think we forgot that we were surrounded by a lot of people and that chaos is comforting. But for people who are single, can you just walk me through what was it like in the early days. I think it was very daunting and very scary. COVID has shown us on a societal level, who we are right. It showed us who we are in relationship with ourselves, and it's shown us who we are in relationships with other people. You know, if you're single, you're extra single. If you're married, you're extra married. If you have kids, you extra have kids, right, So everything is amplified in you doing this piece and researching what has it really been like? Well, what I found is that there's a lot of people who are struggling. When I've talked to people about this, what I've been sort of amazed by is the diversity of the responses. There are people who say, actually, I've had more time to date than ever, and there's a lot of people who feel lonely. And when it comes to dating, I think feeling like you're gonna lose one more year or two more years, not knowing when the next time you'll be able to go on a date again is very scary. So you're already feeling alone, You're already feeling scared. Everything is very uncertain. None of us were prepared for it. A lot of people were saying, if I had known that I would go on another date for I don't know how many months or years um I would have gone on this date with this person, maybe I should have made it work with my ex. So a lot of people were rethinking their dating lives entirely. Let's compare it to regular times. Right. In regular times, you could be confused by a hot restaurant, a hot show, an exciting night. Right, because COVID has changed that, do you think this could change relationships and the way we date going forward? So for the NBC piece, we interviewed Matthew Hussey, who is this dating expert and coach, And one of the things that he had said even pre pandemic was stopped doing fancy dates. Don't let this guy take you to the fanciest restaurant, or don't let this woman bring you to the biggest Broadway show. Just go do a regular thing with this regular person to see who they are and if you get along. I think that now, the fact that you'll be able to meet in person UM will make it so much more exciting because I think we were getting kind of flaky, We were getting kind of comfortable. I know in my own life, UM, going on a date like people would cancel. People were um spending more time online, they were swiping, but they weren't meeting up in person. None of us were going to fancy parties or fabulous events. Did everybody get a lot more human about getting set up? I think that we're all just more human about dating in general, right that whether you met online, whether you met in person, Like it's just like, oh, you met someone. There used to be a hierarchy where meeting online was kind of like shameful. Many it's not. The majority of people now are meeting online. I'm dying to know what this means. How do people hook up? In COVID? People hook up using all kinds of different tools, most of them being virtual tools. So porn is obviously rising, and phone sex is having sort of this revival. I have a friend, you know, said, like that virtual sex session, uh, if you want to call it was the best sex I've ever had. If you think about what happened after the fantish mood after the war in the nineteen twenties, it led to this really beautiful, glamorous sort sort of renaissance. There was an economic boom, but there was also this sexual revolution, right, And so what I see coming is when the quarantine stops, when there's a vaccine or however this ends, that next phase will be a really exciting beginning for uh sex and relationships. I think it's going to lead to an actual, like a postcode sexual revolution where people are going to be so excited to go out and meet new people. We'll be back after the break. So explain to me two things, how you embarked on this dating in the time of COVID, and then how you end up meeting your boyfriend, Like, walk us through this path. I definitely wanted to explore what it was like to date during COVID. I was fascinated by what was happening to me as a single person and also the people around me, and so I tweeted out, single people, when is the next time we're going to go on a date? Are we all screwed? And I didn't realize there was like a double entendre. A friend of mine who saw the tweet was like, I can set you up and actually it worked and I, you know, met my boyfriend six six months ago, but yeah, it feels like so much longer. This has actually been one the longest relationships I've been in before COVID hit, did you want to be in a relationship? Yeah, I was definitely dating, but I was very busy. I would travel a lot, and then everything obviously fell. We all were grounded wherever we were, and suddenly I was like, oh, now I have time to date, but I can't date. But just in general, dating during COVID, did it make you so much more exposed or vulnerable? You have to be sort of vulnerable from the very beginning. My first date with Paul, I was wearing bike shorts and I don't think I wore brought and had a haircut real time. And actually the two first dates were FaceTime dates, and then we end up meeting in person with masks and social distance, and then we just went to a park, something I don't think I've done since I've been, you know, a teenager. I think that the pandemic in a way was the best thing that could have happened to our relationship, because it meant that we wouldn't be on the go and that we suddenly have the opportunity to really make the relationship a priority. We both were just who we were, and there was nothing to sort of hide behind. COVID has thrown all the rules out the window that I kind of think maybe people get to decide what they think is their version of right from wrong? Could that be an improvement? So you're forced to really set rules and talk about your needs in a really direct way and be assertive. And again, you have to trust the person. If you don't trust this person, you could expose your parents, or you could expose someone who dies. Are you able to listen? Are you able to do what I need? Which, again are really important conversations and really important dynamics to have to build a strong relationship. So it's an accelerator in the sense of if you don't like the person, you're going to find out pretty quickly. Um, if you like the person, you're going to go deeper more quickly. For people who are saying, yes, I am alone, I am alone either in this marriage or I am alone as someone who's single, and this is our new normal for the foreseeable future, what should that person be thinking about. We all developed different coping mechanisms to stay away from the hard truths of our lives. What makes us hard to love, what makes us hard to be with? And when everything comes to a standstill. I think it forced a lot of people to, yeah, look at themselves in the mirror and think about, you know what, what do I want in a relationship. You're meeting someone in a moment of crisis, right, You're really getting to know them and getting to know what they're like, not when things are easy, getting to know what they're like when things are hard. And that's a really good thing to find out, no matter how many years you've been together or how many years you have left together, to know again, what kind of person are you when things are not easy? Meeting during a pandemic is anything but normal. But if Liz and countless others prove anything it's that humans are adaptable and that love and human connection is crucial, especially during a crisis. And how about this, It's not all bad getting to know someone on a deeper level without the distraction of a fancy dinner or a Broadway show. It might be better in the long run. Maybe Liz is right. Maybe we're about to enter the next Roaring twenties. In this podcast, we are trying to get straight to the point and leave you with some time to think. Something Liz left me thinking about is this has COVID possibly changed dating and relationships for the better? Are their habits and norms that have developed during this time that might actually lead to more successful, long term relationships and maybe maybe they're here to stay. I'm Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This podcast is hosted by Me. Stephanie Rule, Might Be In. Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production support provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and Lauren Wynn, and special thanks to Katherine kim Are, Global Head of Digital News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thing

And you're meeting someone in a moment of crisis, right, You're meeting someone in a moment where I think, especially at the beginning, I couldn't hide who I was. I couldn't really you can't have small talk. What is small talk? During COVID we are now left like really staring into each other's eyes with no frills, And I think that it forces us to think outside of the box when it comes to dating. COVID has changed basically every aspect of our daily lives, work, school, going out to eat, seeing friends, seeing family, entertaining any social lives whatsoever. Another thing that's changed dating our love lives. Some nights, after a long day of working from home, school from home, everything from home, I look at the dishes that are piled up in my sink. I listened to my kids who are not showered, haven't done their homework, are fighting like cats and dogs. And I asked myself, what would all of this be like if I was going through COVID single. Overall, quarantine and pandemic life have been isolating and lonely, even for those of us who aren't living alone. We're losing out on social interactions, personal connections, and of course, physical touch, so it's not surprising that people found a way around this and found love even from a distance. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior Correspondent, and this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and I Heart Radio. On this episode of Modern Rules, we're asking what it's like to date, find love, and have sex during COVID, and I found the perfect perfect guest for this conversation, the one and only Liz Plank. She is a superstar human, but she's also an MSNBC columnist, and she took on an amazing and very daring assignment where she chronicled part of her dating life during the early months of COVID. Liz, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited to be here with you. For so many of us who may have been mired in homework and making food, I think we forgot that we were surrounded by a lot of people and that chaos is comforting. But for people who are single, can you just walk me through what was it like in the early days. I think it was very daunting and very scary. COVID has shown us on a societal level, who we are right. It showed us who we are in relationship with ourselves, and it's shown us who we are in relationships with other people. You know, if you're single, you're extra single. If you're married, you're extra married. If you have kids, you extra have kids, right, So everything is amplified in you doing this piece and researching what has it really been like? Well, what I found is that there's a lot of people who are struggling. When I've talked to people about this, what I've been sort of amazed by is the diversity of the responses. There are people who say, actually, I've had more time to date than ever, and there's a lot of people who feel lonely. And when it comes to dating, I think feeling like you're gonna lose one more year or two more years, not knowing when the next time you'll be able to go on a date again is very scary. So you're already feeling alone, You're already feeling scared. Everything is very uncertain. None of us were prepared for it. A lot of people were saying, if I had known that I would go on another date for I don't know how many months or years um I would have gone on this date with this person, maybe I should have made it work with my ex. So a lot of people were rethinking their dating lives entirely. Let's compare it to regular times. Right. In regular times, you could be confused by a hot restaurant, a hot show, an exciting night. Right, because COVID has changed that, do you think this could change relationships and the way we date going forward? So for the NBC piece, we interviewed Matthew Hussey, who is this dating expert and coach, And one of the things that he had said even pre pandemic was stopped doing fancy dates. Don't let this guy take you to the fanciest restaurant, or don't let this woman bring you to the biggest Broadway show. Just go do a regular thing with this regular person to see who they are and if you get along. I think that now, the fact that you'll be able to meet in person UM will make it so much more exciting because I think we were getting kind of flaky, We were getting kind of comfortable. I know in my own life, UM, going on a date like people would cancel. People were um spending more time online, they were swiping, but they weren't meeting up in person. None of us were going to fancy parties or fabulous events. Did everybody get a lot more human about getting set up? I think that we're all just more human about dating in general, right that whether you met online, whether you met in person, Like it's just like, oh, you met someone. There used to be a hierarchy where meeting online was kind of like shameful. Many it's not. The majority of people now are meeting online. I'm dying to know what this means. How do people hook up? In COVID? People hook up using all kinds of different tools, most of them being virtual tools. So porn is obviously rising, and phone sex is having sort of this revival. I have a friend, you know, said, like that virtual sex session, uh, if you want to call it was the best sex I've ever had. If you think about what happened after the fantish mood after the war in the nineteen twenties, it led to this really beautiful, glamorous sort sort of renaissance. There was an economic boom, but there was also this sexual revolution, right, And so what I see coming is when the quarantine stops, when there's a vaccine or however this ends, that next phase will be a really exciting beginning for uh sex and relationships. I think it's going to lead to an actual, like a postcode sexual revolution where people are going to be so excited to go out and meet new people. We'll be back after the break. So explain to me two things, how you embarked on this dating in the time of COVID, and then how you end up meeting your boyfriend, Like, walk us through this path. I definitely wanted to explore what it was like to date during COVID. I was fascinated by what was happening to me as a single person and also the people around me, and so I tweeted out, single people, when is the next time we're going to go on a date? Are we all screwed? And I didn't realize there was like a double entendre. A friend of mine who saw the tweet was like, I can set you up and actually it worked and I, you know, met my boyfriend six six months ago, but yeah, it feels like so much longer. This has actually been one the longest relationships I've been in before COVID hit, did you want to be in a relationship? Yeah, I was definitely dating, but I was very busy. I would travel a lot, and then everything obviously fell. We all were grounded wherever we were, and suddenly I was like, oh, now I have time to date, but I can't date. But just in general, dating during COVID, did it make you so much more exposed or vulnerable? You have to be sort of vulnerable from the very beginning. My first date with Paul, I was wearing bike shorts and I don't think I wore brought and had a haircut real time. And actually the two first dates were FaceTime dates, and then we end up meeting in person with masks and social distance, and then we just went to a park, something I don't think I've done since I've been, you know, a teenager. I think that the pandemic in a way was the best thing that could have happened to our relationship, because it meant that we wouldn't be on the go and that we suddenly have the opportunity to really make the relationship a priority. We both were just who we were, and there was nothing to sort of hide behind. COVID has thrown all the rules out the window that I kind of think maybe people get to decide what they think is their version of right from wrong? Could that be an improvement? So you're forced to really set rules and talk about your needs in a really direct way and be assertive. And again, you have to trust the person. If you don't trust this person, you could expose your parents, or you could expose someone who dies. Are you able to listen? Are you able to do what I need? Which, again are really important conversations and really important dynamics to have to build a strong relationship. So it's an accelerator in the sense of if you don't like the person, you're going to find out pretty quickly. Um, if you like the person, you're going to go deeper more quickly. For people who are saying, yes, I am alone, I am alone either in this marriage or I am alone as someone who's single, and this is our new normal for the foreseeable future, what should that person be thinking about. We all developed different coping mechanisms to stay away from the hard truths of our lives. What makes us hard to love, what makes us hard to be with? And when everything comes to a standstill. I think it forced a lot of people to, yeah, look at themselves in the mirror and think about, you know what, what do I want in a relationship. You're meeting someone in a moment of crisis, right, You're really getting to know them and getting to know what they're like, not when things are easy, getting to know what they're like when things are hard. And that's a really good thing to find out, no matter how many years you've been together or how many years you have left together, to know again, what kind of person are you when things are not easy? Meeting during a pandemic is anything but normal. But if Liz and countless others prove anything it's that humans are adaptable and that love and human connection is crucial, especially during a crisis. And how about this, It's not all bad getting to know someone on a deeper level without the distraction of a fancy dinner or a Broadway show. It might be better in the long run. Maybe Liz is right. Maybe we're about to enter the next Roaring twenties. In this podcast, we are trying to get straight to the point and leave you with some time to think. Something Liz left me thinking about is this has COVID possibly changed dating and relationships for the better? Are their habits and norms that have developed during this time that might actually lead to more successful, long term relationships and maybe maybe they're here to stay. I'm Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This podcast is hosted by Me. Stephanie Rule, Might Be In. Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production support provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and Lauren Wynn, and special thanks to Katherine kim Are, Global Head of Digital News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thing