Love in the 'rona

I read an article today about the rise in divorce rates in China now that they are coming out of coronavirus quarantine and are able to head out and get stuff done. Apparently, lawyers are seeing a 25% uptick in couples filing for divorce, and the #1 reason is no longer infidelity but rather over-fidelity. People are filing for divorce because they just spent two+ months trapped with each other in a confined space with no break and all the things that were once thrilling or at least comforting—the voice, smell, touch of the other—are now oppressing. Couples are running away from each other now not only because they could not escape each other’s presence before, but also because they haven’t had the chance to compare their spouses to even less desirable ones.

The now-divorcing couple didn’t get invited to the dinner with that couple down the block—he’s a nice guy, but, man, who would want to live with her? The husband didn’t get to go to poker night and hear, while he was counting at the table, that he has friends who get even less sex than he does. The wife didn’t get together with three friends and five bottles of wine and run out of things to complain about in her marriage long before her friends did.

In the corona—or the ‘rona now that we have grown familiar—love has to work twice as hard for half the pay. And it already works pretty hard to cast a glamour over your snoring and farting, your lack of makeup and shaving, your long work hours and short fuse. Most of the time, it works quietly in the background like your autonomic nervous system regulating your actions and reactions to him, her, them. But weeks of over-exposure to those we love has made love less…reliable, efficient, present. Now you have to remind yourself to use it when it was simply there before. And with hard use comes hard wear—love’s springs are popping through the duct tape, it’s making disturbing grinding noises, and it doesn’t feel as good as you remember. But really, love’s always been unbalanced and jerry-rigged, constantly adapting, using whatever was available to piece itself back together. It’s confusing and awkward and it makes strange noises. It’s embarrassing, not broken. And since you have nothing else to put in its place, you may as well keep it.