Love in the Time of COVID-19: Engaged from Across the World During a Global Pandemic
From tales of couples more in love than ever in lockdown to others torn apart, from the highs and lows of virtual dating to all the exes sliding into your DMs: Love in the Time of COVID-19, a new series from BAZAAR.com, will explore coupling (and uncoupling) in the age of the global pandemic. Expect real stories, relationship advice, and much-needed tropes and takeaways—all from the editors who’ve brought you invaluable stories on sex, emotional labor, attachment theory, and lots of love via BAZAAR Bride.
Over the course of just a couple of weeks, Joshua Brown and Yok Saeoue fell in love, moved in together, and knew they'd spend their lives together. That is, once they met in person.
Now, after years of crossing oceans to be together and a seemingly never-ending pandemic forcing physical distance between them, they're forced to postpone their plans to wed in an intimate ceremony until they can see each other again.
Josh and Yok first met in late 2017 on female-first dating app Bumble. Josh, a wedding filmmaker living in Ottawa, Canada, had planned to move to Thailand for the winter months to escape the cold. To get ahead, he used a VPN "to trick the app into thinking I was already in Bangkok," he tells BAZAAR.com. "I wanted to meet people before I went over there." Upon seeing Yok's profile, he immediately swiped right and sent her a message.
"The first time he messaged me back, I think I ignored him," Yok tells me through nervous chuckles, explaining that she hasn't spoken English to anyone other than Josh in weeks. "Then he messaged me again, and I thought, 'Wow, this guy really wants to talk to me.' I figured I should give him a chance."
Josh told Yok immediately that he wasn't based in Bangkok, but that he would be. "Sometimes people meet online and talk for one or two days before they meet up—but we had weeks," Yok explains. Josh quickly ditched all other conversations he was having on the app, focusing his attention on his late-night and early morning FaceTimes with Yok. "Once I started speaking to her regularly, I couldn't see why I would want to speak to anybody else," he says.
After the couple's online meet-cute and virtual month-long courtship, Yok met Josh at the airport in Bangkok. "Our first date lasted about a week," he remembers with a smile, retelling the story to me via Zoom. "It didn't become real until I actually saw her. I had a hotel for four to five days, and she stayed with me. Then, I was going to get an Airbnb for a month, and she was renting a condo in Bangkok—so I ended up staying with her. We figured we were going to be spending all our time together anyway."
The two spent the next few months living together in Thailand, traveling the country, and visiting Laos, Vietnam, and beyond. Perusing thrift stores and scoping out the best restaurants in each region quickly became their favorite way to spend time together, no matter where they found themselves. After Josh left Thailand to go back to Canada for his busy season in the spring and summer months (a.k.a. wedding season), the two decided to meet in Japan in the summer of 2018, where Josh proposed.
"It wasn't too far in that I realized I would marry her," Josh says. "I remember it really clearly: We were walking through Chinatown and talking about our future, and she mentioned wanting to live in Canada and make trips back to Thailand to see her friends and family. I immediately pictured us creating a life together, and I knew I wanted that too."
As for Yok, it was more about a gut feeling. "I feel like I can be myself with him," she tells me. "When we first started talking, it felt like we'd already met. Early on, in small ways, he showed me that he cares about me and the people I care about."
After their engagement, the two returned home, planning to be long-distance partners until Yok finished school and awaiting the moment she could get a tourist visa to visit Canada. Josh spent November through May 2019 in Thailand, and Yok (after receiving a visa on her first application) spent the summer in Ottawa.
When Josh returned to Thailand in the winter of 2019, things began to feel unsettled around January, from the protests in Hong Kong to the emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan. Then, the Trump administration banned flights between the United States and Europe. Finally, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered all Canadians traveling internationally to return home. Trudeau's measures forced Josh to make the hard decision to return to Ottawa before he'd planned.
"My first wedding of the season was at the end of April. I thought that perhaps this would blow over in two to three weeks, but then I thought that if I stay in Thailand and all my scheduled jobs did move ahead, what would I do?!" he says.
In the end, Josh returned to Ottawa. Thailand closed its borders soon afterward, keeping Yok in the countryside outside of Bangkok, living with her mother to avoid the hot spot of Bangkok's city center, and Josh working from home in Canada, spending more time postponing weddings on his calendar than filming them.
The couple's relationship is now similar to its start, albeit it far more challenging. "I get up, she goes to bed. I go to bed, she's starting her day. Even before this, the distance has always been tough," Josh says. "But now it's the fear that it could go on way longer than we've expected. I've always known that in the worst-case scenario, I can jump on a plane and be there within a day. To have that taken away from me is the absolute worst feeling."
Yok couldn't agree more. "This time, it's different," she says. "We don't know when we're going to be able to spend time together, whether it's me going there or him coming here. We've been apart before, but we always had a plan. We always were able to looking forward to our plans to see each other."
Now, in an even more meta version of social distancing's seemingly never-ending slew of Groundhog Days, the couple is experiencing a romantic déjà vu, planning their day around FaceTimes—not dissimilar from when they first met. And just like the early stages of their relationship, when struggles to manage the time difference, budget flights, and secure visas were their main concerns, Josh is frequently asked if the hardship of the distance and the logistics are "worth it."
"People ask me if it's worth it," he admits, eye-rolling along with me at the notion that anyone has the right to question the worth of anyone's relationship, let alone one in which the couple have consistently jumped through hoops to stay connected. "It 100 percent is. I miss her, I only want the best for her, and I wish she were here, but it’s 100 percent worth the wait. Working in the wedding industry now and hearing about all the postponements, I really feel each couple's pain. Each time, it reminds me of my own situation."
A day in the life of Josh and Yok looks something like this: Text, call, FaceTime, text—with some work, TV, movies, and books thrown in between. "There are times when I just want to talk to him, but I know he's sleeping. And so I'll send him a message, and he'll get it as soon as he wakes up. He'll do the same thing, and it's nice to wake up to messages from him," says Yok.
With the pandemic keeping them apart, both speak to the uncertainty and the lack of answers being the hardest thing to cope with, and Josh has spent a bit of time entertaining the what-ifs had they—in some superhuman, fortune-telling way—preempted the unthinkable.
"It's put a few things in perspective. I wish we'd just gone to City Hall and got married sooner," Josh explains. "There's so much fear that I won't be able to see her just by saying she's my girlfriend. Canada doesn't have a fiancé visa like they do in the U.S., so her coming here as my girlfriend is challenging. Thailand has a spousal visa, and so I wish we'd done something, anything, that would have maybe helped us see each other sooner."
As for what gets them through, "Knowing that we have such a strong relationship and we've been through some distance before helps," he says. "We talk a lot and I trust him. I’m not afraid to lose him to the distance," she adds.
Put succinctly, there is one thing getting this couple over the hurdles the COVID-19 pandemic has posed throughout their long-distance love story. "I guess it's just hope," Josh says on our Zoom call. "Holding out on this hope that life and our relationship can just return to normal."
Once it does, the couple plans to wed in a small, intimate ceremony, officiated by a close friend. As for a traditional Thai ceremony complete with multiple outfits, inviting the entire village, a blessing by the temple monks, and a dowry presented by the groom, the pair will likely hold off on that for now. Just like their relationship, their future marriage will be on their terms. Says the bride-to-be, "I don't want anything fancy, I just want all of our friends to get together to create something special. It's my day, and it needs to make sense for me, for us."
For more stories on Life in the Time of Coronavirus, click here.
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