Book 2, Part 2: Otters in Quarantine (Chad the Dad)

We found each other in the parking lot. He wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured from his profile, and I wasn’t immediately super attracted to him, but that was okay. I knew physical attraction could grow with time. He had come prepared with a picnic blanket, which I found endearing and impressive (my bar for impressive was admittedly low). He’d brought a beer for each of us, too, because I’d said I’d never had a gose before.

We sat and talked as the sun set. I don’t remember why we drank the beers on the tailgates of our separate cars, or if that was another date, but we tried to stay socially distant. We each had little humans to protect, and we both understood that we were trying to stop the spread of the virus in our community.

It was good. It was fun. Again, it wasn’t as fun or funny or clever as when we texted. But that was okay. I was nervous. Maybe he was, too. I still really enjoyed it.

We continued our daily texting after that, having long text conversations each night after our kids were in bed, until one of us started to fall asleep. We texted each other good night most nights.

Scientists had figured out that masks did do something to reduce the spread of the virus (yes, I am one of those people who believe in science), and so masks became both necessary and hard to find. Everyone was making their own. My good friend Ginny made me a beautiful one from scraps of fabric she had, because I was overwhelmed with work and life and she was crafty like that. I sent Chad a picture the first time I wore it into a store. I made jokes about being a ninja.

Chad loved otters, which are also my dad’s favorite animal. I took that as a good sign. After I shared a baby otter picture with him one day, he described how they hold paws with each other in the water. He wrote, “What more could you want from life than someone to float along and hold hands with?”

After training a midmorning workout, I sent him a text about a couple that had been married for decades. They danced together, laughed at each others’ jokes, and worked out together on my Zoom classes. They often kissed in the class pictures. He said, “That’s what I want.” Me, too, Chad. Me, too.

My geeky heart was so happy when he sent me proof that as a Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, we should date.

He joked that I was a Disney princess because of random encounters I had with wildlife in my yard: I lived at the end of a wooded street and had hawks that would land on the fence next to my house in the middle of workouts, rabbits darting past me onscreen, and birds that would flit about as I exercised in my driveway. We shared funny memes about COVID and murder hornets. We looked at articles about bumblebee butts and whether or not sharks sense period blood in the water. He suggested we play Words with Friends to have another point of connection.

It was from him that I heard that schools went from closed for a couple weeks to being shut down for the rest of the school year. He lightened the impact by declaring that his kids were going to be learning a lot about shark farts since he was homeschooling them for the next month. My response: “Omg. Yep, shark farts it is.” In a time of upheaval, his texts throughout the day every day were the most reliable connection I had.

Meanwhile, my training business was booming. Gyms were closed, but we weren’t. You couldn’t find dumbbells anywhere, so I loaned my class sets out and people used tequila and wine bottles, bags of dog food at a vet’s office where I had several clients, big rocks, and laundry detergent. We found ways for people to use towels like battle ropes and resistance bands, stools and kitchen pots for raised surfaces, and their streets, stairs, trampolines, hallways, treadmills, and jump ropes for cardio.

I made a whiteboard schedule each day to give my son a sense of normalcy and predictability. We set up virtual playdates with his friend and my dad, drew “Don’t Give Up” on the sidewalk in downtown Cary to offer encouragement, and did his OT sessions virtually from home. I started leaving him alone in the car for the first time so I could go into the grocery store without having to put him in harm’s way, and could quietly panic alone in the empty aisles. I didn’t have anyone who could watch him, after all, and we were always together when he wasn’t with his dad. I was the only adult there.

By the beginning of May, a month into our texting, it started alarming me that I was already so hooked on Chad. I smiled each time my phone dinged. We’d only met once at that point, but I’d never had anyone put forth that level of effort for me before. I started to expect it to fall apart, because that was what had always happened. But it didn’t, and I calmed a little.


When you’re dating in a global pandemic and trying to stay 6 feet apart, you get creative. We ran together at the Art Museum and then at a local lake, and then shared beers in the parking lots afterwards (breweries and bars were closed and restaurants didn’t have dine-in, remember). We were both trying to navigate a whole new level of consent in that time—instead of just “Are you okay with kissing?” or “Are you interested in sex?” it was, “How do you feel about no longer social distancing?” “Can I stand closer to you?” It was new to everyone, and a confusing topic.

Finally, after a hike at Umstead park, standing in the parking lot, we got closer than six feet. He asked to hug me. I said yes. It turned into a tender kiss. (And then a couple more). It was sweet and lovely.

Afterwards, he texted, “I really enjoyed our moment in the Umstead parking lot. Given all the surrounding circumstances, it made for a very memorable first kiss. Thinking about it makes me smile.” I told him I felt the same way, and had been smiling a lot. I texted two friends about how happy I was.

I started to think I might have gotten lucky. That online dating wasn’t so bad. That I might have only had to meet two men online before one worked out. I thought about how meeting online wasn’t a great “meet cute” story, but that meeting online during a global pandemic was certainly something singular.

The weeks continued—it felt like a long time, those weeks, because of the world, but it really wasn’t. We had more Zoom calls when we had our kids, did a movie date where we each watched a movie he’d recommended (Snowpiercer) from our own homes and texted about it as we watched. In-person dates were a little harder to align since we had different custody schedules, but he made time for seeing me whenever he could. We met at Umstead again for lunch, and he brought take-out food and I brought kombucha. He kissed me hello. We walked around Shelley Lake and then sat on his front porch and sipped mixed drinks he’d made for us (we were still being careful to stay outside, and to social distance in between kisses).

The in-person moments still weren’t as witty or as absorbing as the texting conversations, but I didn’t mind. We talked a lot about our lives, the ends of our marriages, where we wanted to travel, and raising our kids.

He ended it abruptly, over something I didn’t do wrong, but had no control over.

I suppose it’s easier for others to walk away from someone they met online, too.

I curled up in my bed when I didn’t have to be “mom” or “trainer” and hid from my shame and sadness. A week passed, and I checked once to see if he had reconsidered. I told him I didn’t find a connection like ours often. He hadn’t reconsidered, but offered to be friends. I was too hurt to say yes.

After that, I walked through my neighborhood, crying on a gray spring day, listening to “Bluebird” by Sara Bareilles (“I was glad at the time that I said I was fine / But all honesty knows I wasn’t ready, no / And so here we go, bluebird / Back to the sky on your own / Oh, let him go, bluebird / Ready to fly, you and I / Here we go.” My friend Ginny masked up so she could hug me and brought food to me. My other closest friend, Julia, came and sat on my front porch, gave me a plant and a puzzle and let me cry as it poured on the garden beyond the porch and her son played. I wept for another week, and then decided as best I could that I deserved someone who would choose me.

I learned a lot from my time with Chad—not just that bumblebee butts are cute, that pictures of mushrooms can be pretty pornographic, and that there does exist a website that predicts dating compatibility between different Harry Potter houses, but also that I could be funny, and I wanted someone who made me laugh. That it was a relief to have someone who spoke geek to me. That dating another single parent was complicated logistically and simpler in other ways. That I wanted someone who wasn’t risk-averse, because I no longer was; since my marriage ended, I had jumped with both feet into living life—not stupidly, but with adventure.

I was surprised at how easy it was to redirect my energy at that point and move on. I struggled with the sudden departure of all the happy little chemicals that flood your brain when you really like someone. I missed the constant contact of having someone to tell about my day. But I didn’t cry again over him. However, looking back, the choices I made next were certainly guided by the hurt I hadn’t yet healed from Chad and—more importantly—from long before Chad.