Arina Yakobi is pretty sure she is right. Her first date with Michael Hausman on February 24th included a visit to Fotografiska, the photography museum on the East Side of Manhattan, followed by dinner at the hotel's Verōika restaurant. In quick succession came date No. 2: a concert; Date # 3: a performance of the haunting play "Sleep No More"; Date # 4: Dinner at a Thai restaurant on the Upper West Side. The date no. 5 was rounded off on March 12th: “Così Fan Tutte” at the Metropolitan Opera.
The next day, Mr. Hausman, 60, a music manager and former drummer for alternative rock band & # 39; Til Tuesday & # 39 ;, repaired his home in Reeves Bay, Hamptons, and asked Ms. Yakobi, 53, an associate broker at Real Estate Firm Douglas Elliman to get out for a couple of days.
At some point during the visit, a New York ban policy was put in place. "Michael said," Why don't you stay a few more days and see what turns out? "Recalled Ms. Yakobi, who, although acknowledging a bit of fear, knew how long the lockdown or relationship would last. – agreed to stay a bit." We've been on our sixth date for five months now, "continued she went. "I went to the Hamptons and never went."
During their idyll, the couple tended a vegetable garden and purchased half a dozen chickens. Mr. Hausman built a wooden tub and sauna for Ms. Yakobi. In the meantime, she has rearranged the furniture and added pillows and linens to transform the 1950s timber frame house from a weekend bachelorette holiday into a cozy nest for two.
"The pandemic has speeded things up for us," said Ms. Yakobi. "We're talking about winter and next summer. Everything is accepted. Without the virus we would of course have bothered, but there would have been the distraction of our jobs, friends and family."
For some, like Ms. Yakobi and Mr. Hausman, Covid was part of Cupid, part of a relationship broker. "The pandemic was a lower risk opportunity for us to find out," said Brittany Fuller, 28, a product manager who was based in San Francisco when the city was on lockdown and had to quickly decide whether to quarantine on her own in their rent (their roommates had already camped elsewhere) or flying to Los Angeles and quarantined with their three-month boyfriend Chandler Semjen.
