03 Dec As indicated, twenty participants were recruited: twelve were heterosexual women, six were heterosexual men and two were queer men

Just ... it was like my phone was constantly pinging throughout the day, like with people. So it alerts you when this person or that person has liked you... and it was just interesting because like it did that solid for like a week and a half ... so I think it was like initially people were thinking, oh shit, I need to line someone up for isolation.

However, this desire for security was quickly followed by a period of ambivalence and/or disillusionment, before the desire to look for love re-emerged again. As in the time before the pandemic, dating use was characterised by episodic behaviour, but there was little liquidity or flow to the way in which people approached relationships. Instead, what emerged was the paradigm we have termed ‘jagged love', as participants see-sawed rapidly and violently between desperately wanting a romantic partner to navigate this difficult period with, and being disenchanted with the difficulty of dating during a pandemic and their own potential (or lack thereof) as a romantic protagonist.