The pandemic drove you back home to live with your parents. How do you date as an adult (in the place where you were the child)? Here are my tips, as shared with @TheDailyBeast. Journalist Nikki Frias writes,
“The pandemic has led the author, like so many, to return to live with her parents. This means also trying to date under their inquisitive eyes. And questions. So many questions.
At 32, I definitely didn’t expect to be single, unemployed, and sleeping in the same room where I lost my virginity over a decade prior. You’d assume it’s the worst introduction to any guy you’d meet on a dating app, but unfortunately, the most challenging part seems to be explaining to my parents why I won’t be home for dinner.
The “Where are you going?” has transitioned to “Who are you talking to?” and “What’s his name?” It is as if I’ve infiltrated the 13-year-old version of myself, anticipating the talk on boys and my first period. “[They] can say, ‘Mom, I appreciate your interest, but please stop asking so many questions—if it’s someone you should know about, I’ll tell you,’” advised Andra Medea, author of Conflict Unraveled: Fixing Problems at Work and in Families, after suggesting to be straight up with intrusive parents about privacy.

I scour the internet for some form of relevance when it comes to living at home with parental woes only to end up on Reddit reading endless responses to questions like “Where do you smash at?” and others complaining of taking care of their parents, maintaining a household and trying to find love.

We’ve all experienced the walk of shame from a night out, but coming home late after a date only means one thing to parents: sex. As much as I wished my messy hair and wrinkled clothing was a result of such, the truth is I got a little wine buzzed after an un-stimulating conversation about Zoom meetings and eventually Uber’d home.

“Thank your parents for their concern, but remind them that you are an adult,” says relationship expert Susan Winter in an interview with Elite Daily. “Also remind them that they have done a good job to raise you and instill the kind of critical thinking that is necessary for you to make good choices.”

By good choices, let’s not allude to my failed relationships or the one guy you met with the weird facial hair.

On the bright side, the success rate of finding love and marriage from online dating is said to be around 10 percent of the U.S. population, especially within the millennial age range. Unlike my experience of being ghosted and blocked, the actuality of finding a connection seems to be plausible. The challenge of making any form of a romantic relationship, or hell… friends, after eliminating those married, incarcerated, or dead looks different, but still, we have to hope that dating while living at home isn’t impossible.”

Nikki Frias

Nikki Frias is a writer and creator of the website girltellme.com. Check her out on twitter @nikkideecomedy.