Cinderella Dating

Throughout the years…I’ve always considered myself an avid gamer. Not an intense, over the top, fully dedicated supergamerfanatic, but I’ve clocked a LOT of hours behind the screens of my different games. And when it comes to my gaming, regardless of the amount of hours booked, I’ve always been the ‘casual’ type. Most games come with three (or a couple more) different difficulty levels, ranging from casual to normal to hardcore (and sometimes a bunch more on top of that). And you’ll find me right there at the bottom – razing through the world as an overpowered casual lil’bitch.

Now, with all of my writings about me being an ambitious psycho of a person, it might surprise you that I generally play everything I play on the lowest difficulty setting. I’ll let you in on a secret though: that’s both because I tend to lack the required skill to comfortably play on any of the higher ranges, but also because gaming….to me….just has to be fun. I take no pleasure in wiping on the same boss 15 times on a high difficulty setting, when the results are the same on a lower level. Fun is the main pillar for my gaming experience. So I like it easy.

Same goes for me and dating. Dating has to be fun. It has to flow. It has to be easy. When it’s too hard – I check out.

And dating during lockdown season equals dating on the flipping highest difficulty setting there is to the dating game. Dating during corona is already upping your level from ‘casual’ to ‘normal’. Now, adding a lockdown these past few weeks – dating moved onto the ‘hardcore’ level.
And….if we’re getting the additional curfew they’re threatening with in the press conference later today – dating climbs up to ‘insanity’ level. Hard.

It’s not just the fact that you can no longer ‘spontaneously’ encounter potential partners. It’s not just the fact that everyone is bored and using dating apps as a means to kill some time (instead of seriously date). And it’s not the fact that even when you DO end up finding a date…there is pretty much NOTHING to do (except do the Netflixing you were going to do anyway…together). All of those already make even FINDING a date complex, let alone having it actually happen.

Nope – outside of all of these challenges…we are now going to have an extra variable. Time.
When you have to be indoors after 8 and aren’t allowed to leave the house until the sun comes back up again…
Well…any and all (first) dating is thoroughly shot to shreds.

What am I?
Cinderella?
Date a guy between 12 and 6, and then hurry home before my glass slippers turn into steep corona-fines?

I rather stay home and make pumpkin cake from my carriage. Or soup. Or…you know. Food.

I know dating is not a life’s necessity and it arguably shouldn’t even be done while this whole Corona business is in full swing but hey, dying alone is never an attractive option so I gotta be a rebel somewhere. Queen of isolation on all other accounts.

But with this additional curfew?
With this dating-level-increase?

An already limited range of options now slides down to ‘taking a walk in the freezing cold between lunch and dinner’ or the more daring ‘instantly spend the night’ options. You can see my enthusiasm here, right?
Which sucks – because I actually had a first date Monday that was awesome and has me itching for a repeat. You know the type of date, one that restores faith in your once non-bitter ‘dating is awesome!’ self. Easygoing. Not too complex. Not too serious too soon or too casual too long. Just…a good date. One that would’ve been impossible to fit into a pre-curfew session. Gah.

But it’s back to the drawing board in the dating realm while we wait for the vaccine magic, infection-drop and return to normal which may (and possibly may not ever) come. Or, at least, when it’s already too late for my ovaries to even be biologically interested in finding a mate (even though they’re never going to get their way in regards to procreation…but shush….don’t tell them that).

Guess I’ll have to get my Cinderella on for reals.
But I don’t like mice. Sigh.