Dating IRL may be canceled for now, but your digital dating field just got a whole lot bigger.
Tinder will be offering its premium Passport feature for free to all of its users starting next week. The function, which is usually part of the app’s $9.99 to $19.99 membership plans, offers the option to swipe left or right on anyone on the app “to check in with people in other parts of the world,” according to a memo sent out by Tinder parent company Match Group’s CEO Sharmistha Dubey Thursday afternoon.
That means if you weren’t able to lock down a quarantine boo in time for isolating from the coronavirus, at least you’ll be able to digitally date anyone in the world now.
“It’s become clear our need to connect right now transcends geographies,” read the memo obtained by The Post. It also outlined plans for Plenty of Fish, another Match Group-owned dating platform, to offer a new livestreaming feature starting Thursday.
Match Group execs aren’t the only ones pushing for singles to mingle in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Here are the clever ways Cupids around the world are facilitating romance from afar.
Dinner, anyone?
New Yorker Amy Chan, who runs the Renew Breakup Bootcamp for the newly single, has introduced a “Quarantine Supper Club” for people around the world to chat it up while they chow down: It goes live online every evening at 6:33 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Chan also plans to launch a “Quarantine Happy Hour” for singles to find a “pen pal” crush from afar.
Love really is blind
Another way to get set up in New York from your apartment: Two guys from Bushwick, Thi Lam and Rance Nix, are matching up lonely singles on blind dates through their Instagram account and a Google Sheet. They’re calling the service “Love Is Quarantine,” a play on Netflix’s “Love Is Blind.”
Find romance and roommates
If none of those options works out, there’s always Craigslist. Singles on the online marketplace are on the prowl for bunker buddies. “If it’s end of days we can at least go satisfied, and if we live through it then we have an interesting story to share for the rest of our lives,” reads one Craigslist post for an isolation mate by a 42-year-old business professional who includes their height, weight and that they’re “dd” (drug and disease) free.
“Would love to connect with someone, gather some food, necessities and hide together, we can get to know each other, have some fun while doing it,” writes the Queens-based searcher.