[News Focus] Between distance, intimacy: Love in the time of corona

A 27-year-old office worker, surnamed Park, had decided 2020 was going to be a time for focusing on herself as the coronavirus gripped the country.“I made peace with the fact that my life would be on hold for a while,” said the Seoul resident, who wished not to be identified by her full name to protect her privacy.But that was before she knew the pandemic would last well through the year and beyond, with no clear end in sight. “This pandemic is just unrelenting,” she said. Now she found herself reconsidering her extended break from dating.In a time of social distancing, Park is not the only one who is opting to stay solo. Nearly 80 percent of singles aged between 25 and 49 stopped looking for romance since February last year, according to a May survey by the Korea Development Institute’s School of Public Policy and Management. About a third of them cited the coronavirus as the prime reason.The pandemic has raised the stakes for falling in love. For one thing, it means risking one’s health. On top of the threat of catching the disease, for Park, what prevented her from “putting herself out there” was the horror of her…
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