Lockdown may lead to more cases of lasting love

There are few positive aspects to the coronavirus and the chaos and suffering it has caused – directly, in terms of infections and deaths, and indirectly, through the collapse of the global economy as a consequence of the lockdown.

Yet, as we report today, that other particularly stubborn human virus, romantic love, is far from being flattened, although the new “stay-at-home” culture has meant it has mutated back to a simpler form.

While physical contact in a relationship has been locked down, too, people have still been communicating via digital means.

And once many got over the novelty of cybersex, then the art of conversation, through talking, not body language, has begun emerging from where it has been buried under short-term gratification by our selfish consumer culture.

This may be the dawning of the Age of Slow Love, when courtship and wooing once again take centre stage.

In the process, say the relationship experts, people will connect with each other in a cerebral sense long before matters progress to the physical.

Those emotional and intellectual bonds – of respect, of friendship and of love – will be built slowly, but inexorably.

Hopefully, they may make the marriages stronger and longer lasting, post-Covid-19.

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