How Grindr Users Have Adapted to Romance in the Age of COVID

Love has always been complicated, especially for the queer community. On top of the inherent challenges of being queer in a straight world, the COVID-19 pandemic has added some new hurdles to the sex & dating landscape, cutting us off from one another and from our hard-earned traditions and safe spaces. Nevertheless, the queer community has done what it’s always done when faced with a challenge: adapted, evolved, and grown stronger.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we asked 10,000 Grindr users in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, Mexico and India about how their behaviors and expectations have changed since the pandemic’s onset and found that, despite all the loneliness of a year spent in isolation, romance isn’t dead. In fact, the opposite might be true. The Grindr community appears to be using this time to dig deeper into their core values: what they want from a partner, what their comfort zone looks like in a changed world, and how to stay healthy—physically, sexually, and emotionally.

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Head over to www.grindr.com/covid for the full report, as well as our COVID sex & dating safety guidelines created in partnership with Building Health Online Communities (BHOC). If you’re not meeting up this Valentine’s Day, you’re not alone. If you are, you owe it to yourself and your community to heed expert-recommended ways to minimize risk. Either way, we’re here to help you stay informed, stay safe, and stay connected.