IN BLANKSTARE NEWS: Will one-night-stands be a thing of the past?

A new survey by dating app Plenty of Fish found that close to 50% of single Americans between the ages of 18 and 40 haven’t been physically intimate with someone since the beginning of the pandemic. What have they been doing instead? Virtual intimacy. This includes video chats (61%), sexting (54%), and phone sex (47%). And while 42% respondents are ready for physical intimacy after the pandemic and are excited to start dating again … nearly 70% plan to continue being virtually intimate as well. Maybe that's because 64% said the pandemic changed their idea of what intimacy was, with nearly 60% putting a higher value on things like emotions and intelligence, and 45% saying being physical wasn’t the most important part of intimacy. Basically – people realized the value of getting to know someone first. Imagine that.