CHICAGO
The weather has turned cold, officially kicking off cuffing season, the time of year when singles look for short-term relationships to get through the chilly months.
Chicago had a landscape ripe for cuffing season last fall, ranking fourth on the list of top 10 cities in the nation that were having the most sex and looking to casually date.
But this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic has tilted just about every aspect of life on its head, how will dating continue to be impacted, especially during a time when it typically soars?
Bela Gandhi, founder and president of Smart Dating Academy in Chicago, said she doesnt see any significant detriments coming to the dating space this fall and winter. In fact, she thinks there will be an increase in singles searching for relationships, keeping cuffing season alive and well.
I dont see why (cuffing season will be) any different this year, and in fact, it may be even greater because so many people arent going to be traveling to see family during the holidays, she said, so its going to be even more pointed, like Jeez, I dont want to be alone for the holidays.
The desire for a relationshipwhether temporary or long termlikely hit singles harder once the busyness of life halted, explained Gandhi.
We can normally shroud ourselves from that (desire) with lots of friends and happy hours and work events, and all of a sudden when the music stops, youre like, Wow, its me, myself and I, and humans are wired to have a partner.
Video dating, now a larger part of dating culture, could be a reason why cuffing season may not be too impacted this fall and winter.
According to the annual Singles in America survey by dating app Match, 1 in 5 singles have gone on a video date since the pandemic started. The survey, in its 10th year, questioned more than 5,000 singles throughout the United States who varied in age, ethnicity, income and background.
Major nuisances in typical dating are some of the stressors like wondering who pays for the date, what to wear, a good neutral location to meet and safety. But with video dates, its an even playing field; a lot of the pressure is off, but there is still a unique feeling of intimacy you dont usually get, Gandhi said.
Everybody comes to (dating) from a different space, said Gandhi, and now youre doing it from the comfort of your own home. ... In a sense its a more intimate date because youre in someones space, youre in their house with them.
She said you can see what they look like on FaceTime, and if they respect the dating process. Are they going to get ready a little bit, and look nice, or do they look like they havent showered in a few days?
Its almost no surprise, then, that of the singles who were surveyed, 65% said that video chatting made them like their date more. Additionally, 59% reported having more meaningful conversations during their video chat.
If youre going to partake in cuffing season via video dates, Gandhi recommends putting time constraints around the video call, like doing a half hour happy hour or coffee date, instead of a 2-hour chat.
If the video dates continue, then they can be longer and consist of things like house tours, playing games, or making a meal together.
You can see someone in their own element then, said Gandhi. I dont have clients going to each others houses until theyre exclusive ... but here on date three or four, you can be in someones kitchen and watch what their temperament is like when theyre cooking or something doesnt come out rightits like an insider glimpse.
In-person dates arent completely off the table in the winter, even though options are more limited and dependent on peoples comfort levels.
Gandhi suggests still going for a walk, especially since talking shoulder-to-shoulder can help foster intimacy and relieves some of the tension and awkwardness that comes with sitting face-to-face. Also, she says you might be more protected on an outdoor date since youll be bundled up and can use a scarf as a face covering.
But yet, video dates may be the safest way toward love this cuffing season. According to the survey, 56% of respondents said they felt romantic chemistry while video chatting with someone, and 50% said they fell in love through the medium. There really doesnt seem like theres much to lose.
Youre way better off in front of your screen, masks off, talking to people, Gandhi said. Why not just kick back, have some coffee or a glass of wine, and chat with somebody in their house? Its better, faster, cheaper, more efficient.
Eva Rosol was stunned during the summer when a rotisserie chicken that she could normally find on sale for $6 suddenly set her back $15.
Rosol, a resident of the Chicago suburb Westmont, Illinois, who lost her job as a substitute teacher when COVID-19 shut schools in March, could afford it thanks to the $600 per week in unemployment benefits the federal government offered during the first four months of the pandemic.
But those extra benefits expired in late July.
Now Rosol, 54, who has a business degree and is seeking a job in sales, receives $108 weekly in unemployment aid. Meanwhile, her husband, who sells advertising for an auto and RV magazine, is making a quarter of what he normally earns.
Rosol has nixed the one night a week they used to eat out, shops the circulars and frequents five different grocery stores to find the lowest prices, trying not to rely on charity to put food on the table.
I have gone to food pantries, but I feel guilty doing that because there are other people who have much more need, she said.
Though food prices that spiked during the summer have started to come down, staples such as milk and meat remain much pricier than usual, pinching the budgets of millions of Americans who can ill afford higher grocery bills.
The price Chicago- area shoppers paid for dairy products such as milk, butter and eggs was 8.3% higher in September than a year before, according to the Labor Departments Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meat prices were 5.3% higher. Normal annual food inflation is 2% to 3%.
Prices have fallen from summer peaksmeat prices in the Chicago metro area were 15.3% higher in June compared with last yearbut with fewer promotions, grocery bills are still higher.
Usually, 31.4% of grocery store items are purchased on some sort of sale, but at the end of September the share was 26%, according to market research firm Nielsen. The biggest impact was in the household care department, where just 15% of items were sold on promotion, half the usual amount. Heightened consumer demand and strained supply are giving stores little reason to mark down prices, Nielsen said.
Elevated food prices may be going unnoticed by families who are saving money during the pandemic because of canceled vacations and skipped commutes.
But they squeeze the many who remain out of work or face new rounds of layoffs amid a second surge of COVID-19, while Congress remains at an impasse over further relief.
Illinois unemployment rate ticked down to 10.2% in Septemberhigher than the 7.9% national averagebut more than 650,000 Illinoisans remain unemployed, up from 240,000 this time last year. Thousands more have seen their hours or pay reduced or arent included in the unemployment numbers because theyve stopped looking for work.
Without the $600 bonus, people relying on unemployment aid are receiving just 40% of their usual pay. A $300-per-week boost ordered by President Donald Trump using disaster relief funds covered lost wages only through early September. Negotiations on legislation to extend the extra unemployment benefits and provide more stimulus checks are inching forward.
That extra money kept a huge number of families afloat during the summer, said Jeremy Rosen, policy director at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.
Food makes up about 20% of the average family budget. Though food prices tend to be volatile, the current environment adds to the perfect storm of so many people losing their jobs and losing income, said Northwestern University economist Diane Schanzenbach.
People facing the pressure of higher prices are changing what they buy to stretch their food dollars.
Ariel Neal, owner of Leira Knows Cocktails and Events, has been opting for more potatoes and starches and fewer fruits and vegetables.
Neal, 42, who designs corporate and social events featuring cocktail and spirits education, lost much of her business when the pandemic took hold. She didnt qualify for unemployment benefits or small business relief, and has been subsisting on her savings and the governments Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.
Before, $20 would have gotten me at least two to three meals, said Neal. Twenty dollars doesnt do that anymore.
How grocery prices got so high
Food prices started to soar early in the pandemic, as pantry-loading shoppers cleared grocery shelves and government stay-at-home mandates took hold in mid-March. Supply chain bottlenecks exacerbated the price increases for meat, eggs and dairy.
Outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers at pork and beef processing plants led to temporary plant shutdowns in April and May that left farmers unable to send their animals to slaughter while retailers and butchers couldnt get their hands on enough cuts of meat.
The sudden mass shift to eating at home, which in March jumped to 60% of consumers food dollars, created numerous hurdles as processors struggled to repackage food for consumers rather than commercial clients.
Egg prices surged until the Food and Drug Administration issued temporary food safety standard exemptions that allowed eggs destined for schools and restaurants to be sold at retail.
Dairy prices plunged, then skyrocketed, as farmers facing a surplus dumped milk, curtailed milking schedules and in some cases culled their herds to reduce supply, while the government stepped in and purchased surplus product from farmers.
That put retail in a whipsaw, said Peter Vitaliano, chief economist at the National Milk Producers Federation.
It took a few months for the volatility to show up in grocery prices because retailers like to keep prices stable, Vitaliano said.
Most of the problems have been worked through, experts say. Transmission of the virus at meat plants is under control and beef and pork processing volumes are now greater than last year, said Jayson Lusk, head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.
But even as price pressures start to drop, the supply chain bottleneck is still there and we are still seeing it in some of the price data, Lusk said.
Economists expect food prices to normalize.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting food prices to rise 2% to 3% this year and next, which is slightly higher than the 1.9% increase last year but in line with the 20-year historical average of 2.3%, said Scott Irwin, a professor in the department agriculture and consumer economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Its expensive to eat healthy
Yvernia Wilson, who is on a fixed income and vigilant about grocery prices, was taken aback early in the summer when a large package of hamburger meat shed normally pay $8.99 for was listed at $14 at the Jewel-Osco she shops at on Chicagos South Side.
A nice-sized pot roast for Sunday dinner was almost $20, $6 more than shed usually spend. Even a package of chicken wings cost $3 more.
Months later, prices still feel outrageous, said Wilson, 63, who lives in Calumet Heights with her adult son and 6-year-old twin granddaughters and pays for the households groceries.
You walk around the store and say, Do I get this or do I get that? How much of this can I get to make it stretch? she said.
Wilson restricts herself to two meats and for some items has resorted to buying cheaper brands she doesnt necessarily like. She bypasses the organic aisle and sometimes forgoes fruit altogether if it isnt on sale.
We talk about eating healthy, and its expensive to eat healthy, she said.
Wilson, who lost her husband to cancer in December, lives on Social Security and a small pension from the company where she worked for 26 years.
Wilson also, for the first time in her life, applied for government food assistance.
I always worked. At 63, I said, Is this what my life has come to now? said Wilson, who is enrolled at Chicago State University, pursuing her bachelors degree in sociology.
Luisa Echevarria remembers not understanding why her grandmothers behavior suddenly changed.
I was always very tuned into the adults, she said, recalling hearing her uncle and mother mentioning her grandmother was acting differently. I started to notice these things, too, but in my childs mind I didnt know how to wrap my head around whats happening.
Echevarria, who is on the board of the Alzheimers Foundation of America, says it can be hard to know how and when to talk to kids about a family members dementia diagnosis.
The Alzheimers Foundation of America recently published a book for families, Dancing With Granddad: An Alzheimers Story for Children and Their Families. It follows a 7-year-old as she sees her grandfather becoming confused, wandering in the middle of the night and retelling stories. Her parents talk to her about the changes and eventually explain how he will move to a new home to be safer.
Jennifer Reeder, director of educational and social services at AFA, says it is important to include the person who is diagnosed in conversations about the present and future.
Im sure some people would want to be part of the discussion, she said, especially if it is in the early stages and they feel they are able to effectively communicate.
Ask if they want to be involved and important points they want the child to know. It might be something like, If Im having a bad day, and I seem really cranky, its the Alzheimers thats making me cranky, its not you.
Echevarria said when her mother began showing signs, they talked to nieces and nephews, who asked things like whether she was going to get better. She explained it was a disease that would progress.
Children can understand and accept a lot more than we give them credit for, but its really important to be honest and to be clear about whats happening, she said.
Parents can begin with a tool like the foundations book, and ask questions such as, Does the grandfather in this book remind you of anyone? or Have you noticed that Grandma is different, too? Remind a child not to take any changes personally, such as when the family member forgets a name or asks the same question. Tell them the person is doing the best he or she can and cares about them as always, even if it is not expressed in the same way.
Some tips for kids include reminding the relative who you are and the reason for the visitthat you are there to draw a picture or tell a story, for example. And be sure to speak slowly so the person has time to respond.
Online dating. Online meeting of a young man and woman. A man uses a video call, holds a glass of champagne and communicates with a beautiful woman.
Grocery bags set. Plastic and paper packages, supermarket basket with food packs, cans, bread, milk products. Flat vector illustrations for shopping, food delivery, charity concept.
