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Did you know I have a girlfriend?
Sometimes you’ll meet a girl in grade 10 and you’ll both be into each other, but there’ll be those pesky current boyfriends/girlfriends in the way. So, you both decide you’re just friends and date other people. The two of you being single at the same time never 100% lines up.
The girl moves away for university and it’s sad. She gets a boyfriend there and for all you know, it’s going well. Then you’re 23 and something magical happens while she’s home visiting family and friends one summer: a global pandemic sweeps the country. Lockdown orders are in place. She’s trapped in her home province and fresh info surfaces about how her Ontario relationship has been terrible. It’s time to strike.
Relationships are about homes and sometimes you gotta wreck a home to make a home. Demolish that structurally unsound garbage and build a new home with a jacuzzi tub and no popcorn ceilings.
She was back in my life. Hanging out with a long-time friend became napping at the same time became sleepovers became a year-and-a-half-long relationship where she now lives with me and my family.
My dad even drives her to work at 8 a.m. when it’s too snowy for her car’s all-season tires.
I’m going to refer to my girlfriend as GGF (Gorgeous Girlfriend) throughout this article for a hint of privacy. I may have found romance in the pandemic, but many people found isolation and misery. How do you date during a pandemic? People on dating apps began to wonder “can I really keep a text conversation going with this person knowing we’ll possibly never meet IRL?”
Tinder found enlightenment
The answer was a surprising “yes.” Former Tinder CEO Jim Lanzone told BBC in June 2021 (a few months before stepping down from his position) that a notable shift to virtual dating had been made on the app in response to the pandemic. Messages sent per day increased 19 per cent and conversations become 32 per cent longer. Half of Gen Z users started having dates via video chat.
Tinder’s Netflix and chill era ended and the age of Zoom call and enthral began.
By slowing down, Gen Z was forced to have meaningful conversation before meeting someone in person. The user mindset changed to prioritize conversation over hooking up and it became essential to have your profile showcase your personality in addition to your hotness.
No one wants to spend an indefinite amount of time talking to a sexy plank of wood.
Tinder’s analytics data found that pandemic users preferred their matches to have “authenticity” and “openness.” Including the words “anxiety” and “normalize” in your bio became the key to success. Lanzone speculates that this mindset change happened to combat loneliness. Isolation is a bit easier when you can look forward to the next message from that special someone.
Eventually, restrictions lightened up but bars remained closed. Daters started meeting up for hikes and other outdoor activities out of necessity. GGF and I went on hours-long walks along the Red River during this time. We were decked out in scarves, gloves, and long johns to combat the frigid -30 Winnipeg winter nights. The deer would come up to us to say “hi” and the Christmas lights looked extra pretty. Walking was THE go-to pandemic date for two reasons: A) what else was there to do? And B) geez dates cost money and I hadn’t worked for like five pandemic months.
It’s all about the money, money, money
At 19, I was living at home and working two jobs. I had an important decision to make. I could either save my money and buy a car, or I could spend, spend, spend until I had a mighty toy collection with over 1000 pieces and a combined retail value equivalent to that of a car. I chose the latter because it’s good to have hobbies. I was able to spend irresponsibly in my youth because I lived at home. I was comfortable there and didn’t have someone who I was looking to start a life with making me itchy to leave.
I’m now 24 and have the wisdom of old age on my side. I’ve recently started pricing out life costs with GGF and have finally had the adult realization that damn, living is expensive. The demand for livable wages has been a hot topic among today’s youth. Millennials were famously reported in 2020 to be much poorer than their parents and according to the Washington Post, “the unluckiest generation in U.S history.”
Manitoba saw a minimum wage increase to $11.95 an hour in October 2021. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that that isn’t enough to live. Many Manitoban workers can’t make ends meet on that income. They found that $15 an hour was the bare minimum needed to raise all the households in their study over of the national poverty line, assuming they’re working 40 hours a week. Minimum wage workers are expected to be renting instead of buying houses but even renting has become a herculean task. In Manitoba, a mortgage payment on a small house will often price out to be cheaper or the same compared to rent on a small apartment.
I’ve grown accustomed to a lavish lifestyle. Though I would love nothing more than to move out with GGF and start a family, I’m not a huge fan of the idea of becoming impoverished. Manitoba has one of the lowest minimum wages in Canada, only being ahead of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said, “Other provinces have taken action to increase their minimum wages to levels that allow workers to meet their basic needs. Manitoba has fallen behind the rest of Canada, and that means thousands of minimum-wage earners and those who make just above it are falling behind too.”
A working guy and a working gal
I work part-time at a coffee house and GGF works full-time at a spa. Our combined monthly income is about $2,800. Big yikes. That’s not a number that screams financial independence. Both of our jobs are customer service. I don’t know why most minimum wage jobs are customer service because it’s easily the worst field.
We share tales with each other after every shift of the horrible customers we encountered that day. She has, for some reason, had to call 911 to the spa multiple times because customers were battering each other in the pools. That’s not the kind of stress that should be found in a job that’s considered “entry-level.”
The big benefit of GGF and I being nowhere close to financial independence during the pandemic is that money didn’t put a strain on our relationship. My parents were kind enough not to charge us rent during those no-income months, making our workplaces being temporarily shut down like a nice little vacay to spend time with each other. Many other couples didn’t have the same experience.
You get a divorce! You get a divorce, and you get a divorce!
While Tinder was facing a glorious golden age, marriage was getting kicked in the shins. Divorce lawyer Russell Alexander told CBC in May 2021 that his client base had grown by about 30 per cent since the pandemic began. COVID-19 was proving to be quite the little homewrecker.
Many couples found that they didn’t actually have much to talk about and that financial woes were causing a strain on their relationship.
Finder Canada conducted a survey in March 2021 and found that 15 per cent of Canadians both married and unmarried experienced a break-up since the start of the pandemic. That’s nearly five million people where 2018 only saw 2.6 million split.
25 per cent of the five million were Canadians aged 18-24, placing them firmly in the lead for breakups. Manitoba tied Quebec and Alberta for the highest rate of marital separation at 6-8 per cent. Toronto family law lawyer for Shulman & Partners LLP, Laura Paris told CTV News in January 2022 that she’s been seeing divorces grow increasingly aggressive as pandemic stressors continue.
“We’re seeing more cases where people are more like, ‘I don’t care what it costs, I just want to screw the other person over.’ It’s becoming a lot more difficult for us to have the kinds of conversations where we are trying to talk them off a ledge,” she told CTV News.
A lawyer from the same firm, Alyssa Bach, told CTV News that she and other lawyers are suggesting people put a “COVID clause” in their divorce settlements that addresses the “unknown aspects that come with separating during a pandemic.” An example of a COVID clause event would be both parties agreeing to “put a pin in it” and settle their assets at a later date if a job loss occurs as a result of COVID-19
In Canada, you must have lived separately from your spouse for at least one year before a divorce can be granted. Talk about a waiting game.
My family makes a middle-class income and moved houses in September 2021. My parents had been bidding on houses since March but kept getting drastically outbid. We’re talking getting outbid by over $200,000 on one house. Maclean’s and The New York Times tell similar stories about the Canadian housing market skyrocketing during the pandemic. The median rent on an apartment in Manitoba is $1,021. Imagine having to pay for a new place to live on top of the recent legal fees from your messy divorce.
It’s enough to devastate a person. And while the housing market is making it hard for people wanting to separate, it is making it nearly impossible for young people to move out and become independent.
Is this nest ever going to get empty?
Let’s say you’re one of the 1.5 million Canadians who moved back in with their parents during the pandemic. It’s cool; it’s okay; there’s no shame in it. Nearly 1 in 10 Canadians have had their living situation change due to COVID-19. I’m likely to forever remain in the 2016 census statistic of over one-third of Canadian Youth who are still living with their parents if the housing balloon doesn’t pop soon.
The first house my parents bought was in 1995 and cost them about $70,000. It was four bedrooms, detached garage, in an iffy neighbourhood, with a square footage of 1,138. The current house my family lives in is three bedrooms, attached garage, in a better neighbourhood, 1610 sq ft and cost them about $550,000. Now let’s cross-reference this with the 1995 Manitoba minimum wage of $5.25 vs. today’s $11.95 and hmm something doesn’t quite add up here. Minimum wage went up 127 per cent in the last 27 years but the cost of my parents buying a house went up 686 per cent? And I’m just expected to own land and have a baby by 25 like they did? Hold your horses there, compadre.
The house my family lives in now is nicer and in a better neighbourhood, but that doesn’t make up for a 686 per cent price increase. Both my parents were working entry-level jobs in ’95 and were financially secure enough to afford baby me in 1997. Sure, I’m told money was tighter for us in those days, but I only remember having the carton of apple juice refilled with water a few times and only used rice instead of a glue stick once or twice.
Sometimes I wish I could be a bear, free from capitalistic financial responsibilities, living carefree in the woods, and moving out from mom’s cave at the ripe age of 17 months and ready to find a mate and have cubs of my own.
GGF and my parents are now best friends
GGF moved in with me and my family about one year into our relationship. She had been a close friend of mine for almost 10 years before we started dating and had in that time gained my parent’s overwhelming approval. She grew up living with her grandparents who she, at best, has a strained relationship with. GGF’s workplace was having a COVID-19 outbreak among the staff on top of the average 300 different customers she sees per day. It gave her enough reason to tell her grandparents that she was a risk to their health and that it’s probably best that she moves in with me and my family.
Which has been great, but now we’re always thinking about how we can get to that next step. My mom was ecstatic to have GGF come live with us because she had been living only with boys since she started a family. Now my mom has a buddy to watch hours upon hours of 90 Days and Pimple Popper with on the daily.
“I feel pretty fortunate that your family is willing to let us save for our future,” said GGF, “but at the same time I would like for you and I to be able to reach that milestone of having our own place.”
My mom says she doesn’t have a problem with us living at home as long as we’re working or working towards something. She says that inflation is making it hard for young people to stay above water and that she’d rather we wait to move out and save for a quality house that we’re happy with while still being able to afford food.
“What you end up paying for a house and what you end up getting isn’t a fair exchange,” said my mom.
GGF never really had parental figures in her life so she’s finding the traditional family experience refreshing. She even has the honour of having my mom throw assorted small objects at her, a pain reserved only for those my mom adores most. GGF keeps telling my dad that she’s giving him the daughter experience by making outrageous requests at odd hours. My dad says “no” to getting her McDonald’s at 2 a.m. the first two times she asks, but he breaks the third time, every time. Then we all reap the benefits of late-night fast food.
Why have kids when you can get crushed by the housing market instead?
Me and GGF are part of the growing trend of couples waiting until later in life to start having kids. The housing market played a big role in getting this trend going. Our 20s have become about getting an education and a career so we can afford luxuries like a house or apartment. Statistics Canada found in November 2014 that “over the past 150 years, Canada has changed from a high-fertility society where women had many children during their lives to a low-fertility society where women are having fewer children overall and at increasingly older ages.” The fertility rate in Canada has been below replacement level for over 40 years now. Today, Canada relies on immigration for population growth.
The average age of a first-time mother was 26 in 1990. Today the average age has jumped up to 30. The pregnancy rate of Canadian women aged 35-39 has been higher than that of women aged 20-24 since 2010. Generation Squeeze found that this is because of less income and pricier housing. It takes longer now for adults to feel established and financially secure enough to support a baby. After you add up daycare, clothes, food, and assorted other messes, a baby on average costs you $15,000 a year! What person under 30 has that kind of money to throw around??
Our whole culture has shifted to late bloomers.
I’m a broke 24-year-old student. I don’t even own a car; I don’t feel confident in affording a baby. The 2016 census found that the number of childless couples grew faster than ever before in the last five years and that they now rival couples with at least one child. The latter group at 51.1 percent. The lowest level recorded in Canadian history. These stats aren’t just Canada either; Spain, Italy, Japan, and other developed countries have been seeing a decline in birth rates for similar financial reasons. You need a dwelling of your own before you’re ready for a baby because that is what society dictates. Also, where in my parents’ house would I keep a baby? My mom’s office/my toys and comics room? I don’t think so. Stagnant wages and soaring real-estate prices equals no babies and continued growth in senior citizens outnumbering children in the Canadian population.
I do still want to have a house and a family with GGF, but damn are these stats depressing. GGF and I have talked about having kids. I’m a fan of having kids at 30 but GGF would prefer something earlier so that we can be hip parents and she can be a hot mom. I want to have a kid with her because it’s the ultimate team-building exercise, the ultimate group project. A great way for us to solidify ourselves as the iconic duo we oft claim to be.
An iconic duo
Me and GGF became a couple in the height of the pandemic. We wanted to tell our friends but doing so over the phone or through text would have been boring. We knew we had to let them know in the most effective and dramatic way of conveying information that has ever been invented: a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
Gatherings of any kind were on hold when we got together, so we had to wait because obviously this PowerPoint presentation had to be in person. We had been a close group of friends for almost 10 years now and GGF and I wanted to see the expressions on our friends’ faces. We didn’t know when gatherings of any kind would be allowed again so we kept it secret. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, our close friends remained unaware that me and GGF were now romantically linked. We’d all partake in online calls with me and GGF in the same room and none of them became the wiser.
After four months the time finally came. Outdoor gatherings became legal again, but the snow outside was still at least three feet deep. We concocted a plan to host our friends in my parents’ backyard under the guise of a normal PowerPoint night. I spent an hour shoveling out a large square in the backyard where hootenannies could be had. It was sweat-filled work, but it had to be done. We bought a projector and a firepit and put out some chairs. The scene was set. We required our friends to make PowerPoint presentations of their own to be allowed entry to this shindig. We made it clear that if they came without one, they would be turned away.
After presentations on hermit crabs, dreams, and Star Wars, it was finally time for our grand finale of a presentation. We listed off other iconic duos like Bert and Ernie, Sonny and Cher, Bill Gates and philanthropy, then revealed the most iconic duo of all: us. We followed up with a slideshow of photos from the last four months. Our friends were happy for us, so we made them fill out a trivia game about our relationship.
I know I’m not the only person my age or older who finds themselves still living with their parents. It’s a trend that will continue to grow with housing prices. There’s no solution in sight so we might as well normalize it. If you have an adult child, I implore you, invite their significant other to move in with you. It might be fun.
Cut to today and GGF is sleeping in our room while I finish writing this. She made dinner for my family tonight after she was done gossiping with my mom and explaining to my brother how he’s a beta but in a good way. Tomorrow she’ll go to work and then come back here after because my home is her home which is also my parents and brother’s home and sometimes my brother’s girlfriend’s home too. We’re not going to live with my parents forever, but it’s fun while we are. Maybe we’ll have money in a few years, travel, then buy a house. I need to spend irresponsibly for at least one more year before I’m ready to pay land transfer taxes.
