Dating During Covid

Relationships can be confusing and hard to manage during normal circumstances. Covid can add another layer of difficulty to them. The University of Kentucky has taken many precautions in order to keep all students healthy and on campus. This comes at a price to relationships. One of the steps taken prohibits students from having any guests in their room. This includes other UK residents that live on campus. Couples are being denied private places to spend time together and it is very frustrating. 

 

I am tired of sitting in the car in random parking lots all over Lexington with my girlfriend. I think we spend about 6 hours in the car together everyday while we do some classes, schoolwork, and not school related stuff like watching Tik Toks. I personally think it’s ridiculous that we can’t sign each other into our buildings. Except it doesn’t just end there. We have been yelled at for sitting together in the library. We were forced to move from the cubby we were sitting in because ‘only one person is allowed in one to maintain 6 feet of physical difference’ even though that same security guard did not yell at other people occupying cubbies together. Whether this is happened because of Covid mandates or as an act of homophobia, it is still annoying that we aren’t allowed places together. 

I get what the university is doing to try and keep us safe, but there is absolutely no difference between us hanging out in her car and off campus than it would be in a dorm room. In order to study together we have been forced to find off-campus restaurants and coffee shops that offer adequate WiFi to do work. This also forces us to spend money at these locations that we wouldn’t be spending if we could stay on campus. Now that the weather is getting cooler, we lose the opportunity to spend afternoons together at local parks around the city. 

We started to pet sit around Lexington just to be able to spend time together that doesn’t require wearing a mask or standing on different dots. While it is nice to have that space together, it takes lots of time and effort traveling to these houses from campus as well as doing our school work and taking care of the animals. 

I believe that students should be held accountable by the school for their actions. My girlfriend and I shouldn’t lose the privilege to go to each other’s rooms because some students can’t stop partying in the middle of a global health pandemic. We aren’t going to go into huge crowds and exposing/being exposed to the virus and we wear masks and social distance in public with friends. We simply want the ability to cuddle and watch an episode of TV together in between classes. 

Luckily our relationship is strong enough that these setbacks don’t impact us, but aspects of it can lead to some frustrations and issues in relationships.