Over the last ten years of running a leading matchmaking agency, we have come to notice the trends and common threads that our clients bring to the table. As far as a wish list goes, political opinion can be a driving factor for a client to want to date someone, and can be a huge deterring factor for most Irish singles in their pursuit for love. Some disclose that they could never date a Sinn Féin supporter, even if they were the most perfect match on paper otherwise. Some even hypothesize that if their prospective partner were to have lived in the US and would have voted for Trump in the last election, that they wouldn’t be willing to even sit down with them over dinner. What we have come to realise is that the importance of this argument may become a lot less severe as people shift their focus from political opinion to opinions about the COVD19 vaccination, which was first issued in the ROI to an elderly Dublin woman late last December.
Must Like Dogs… and Be Vaccinated
As recognized by GQ Magazine already, in an article posted online on January 13th, Danielle Cohen writes: “A Twitter user based in Ireland posted the Grindr profile of a “vaccinated top” with the foreboding caption, “It has begun.” Cohen believes that vaccinations will become a ‘flex’ for online daters, and predicts that Tinder and Bumble profiles will slowly start to include whether or not daters are vaccinated for COVID-19. Daters who are pro-vaccine will be ruling out “anti-vaxers” in their search for love. This will have absolute nothing to do with personality or physical attraction, but will be purely based on whether or not their opinion on the COVID-19 vaccine is the same. This can come across quite reasonable to a lot of Irish singles, whose lives have been drastically changed by the spread of COVID-19, especially those who have lost loved ones to the virus or who have not been able to see close relatives and friends due to the persisting lockdowns and severe restrictions across counties and countries. Ireland have already lost almost 3,000 citizens to the coronavirus which was first detected in the Republic of Ireland on February 29th of last year.
In recent news, Leo Varadkar has issued a statement that has extended Level 5 restrictions to March 5th 2021 and has said to believe that strict, mandatory quarantining will remain for the foreseeable future. Varadkar, in an interview with presenter Claire Byrne for RTE, announces that “people who maybe would like to take a summer holiday in August, people who would maybe like to see their relatives this Christmas that they haven’t seen, that would probably be off the agenda”, which only seems to be yet another bomb to the people of Ireland who are trying desperately to manage their lives at this stage of the COVID-19 era. Understandably, the majority of Irish people are losing more and more faith in the government’s strict implications, as it seems that after almost a year of COVID-19 entering our lives, we have made very little progress in effectively handling day-to-day life with the virus among us.
Singles will find it difficult not to ask the opinions of prospective partners on the vaccine
This all amounts to the general Irish single having very strong opinions on the COVID-19 vaccine. On one side you have the people adhering to the government’s advice, participating in the mandatory quarantine and lockdown restrictions, the ban on travel outside of their 5k and the other many guidelines that have been laid out for us, patiently waiting for the numbers to go down and for the vaccine to make its way into the public. On the other hand, you have the people who doubt the government’s policies are effective, who are unwillingly participating in quarantine and lockdown restrictions and losing their minds because of that, and who are not planning on getting vaccinated as they feel heard immunity would be a quicker, more constructive way to rid Ireland of the virus and commence with ‘ordinary’ life. As you can probably tell, if you follow any news outlet on social media and have read the copious amounts of comments across every coronavirus related post, both sides are very strong and set in their arguments. Due to the topic being at the forefront of everyone’s minds, singles will find it difficult not to ask the opinions of prospective partners on the vaccine.
Vaccination – The New Dating Dealbreaker?
For the healthcare workers and other essential workers on the frontline who have already received the vaccination, another trend has begun to spread it’s wings. Vaccinated singles are almost using the fact that they are COVID-19 immune to boost their probability of finding a partner whilst the pandemic persists. Some who are vaccinated believe that it will set a potential partner’s mind at ease if they declare that they have been vaccinated before meeting up. Others think that the declaration is narcissistic and invalid, as it has been stated that the vaccine may not prevent the spread of COVID-19, although it does cause immunity.
It’s almost as if certain vaccinated individuals have interpreted their vaccinated status as a green light to mingle with others, knowing that they themselves will not contract the virus. It creates a small bubble of singles who, now immune to the vaccine, can flaunt their immunity and who want to date or ‘hook-up’ with others who are still at risk of receiving the virus, although it may not be through first-hand contact. The importance is not, in fact, who has the vaccine and who doesn’t. It is whether or not singles are adhering to the restrictions and maintaining simple practices like social distancing, using sanitizer and wearing masks to contain the spread of the virus. Just because someone is immune to coronavirus, doesn’t mean that they can’t spread it to others.
In a poll we conducted on our Instagram story during the week, we received the following statistics:
- 100% of participants were pro-vaccine.
- 57% think that a potential partner’s opinion on the COVID-19 vaccine will determine if they are dateable or not, yet only 33% of participants said they would date someone who didn’t plan on receiving the vaccine.
- 59% would kiss someone who had been vaccinated, even though they themselves had not been.
- Lastly, only 7% of participants said that they do not plan on receiving that COVID-19 vaccination
This goes to show that although the initial reaction to the vaccine is positive, and most people are willing to receive it, yet a lot of pro-vaxers seem unwilling to date someone who did not plan on receiving the vaccine. Although these statistics are based on a small scale, we do believe this hones in on the fundamental idea that in 2021, the biggest turn on or turn off won’t be based on physical attraction, but will be based on whether or not someone is willing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Brace yourselves, the Tinder bios are about to start changing…