You may expect dating to have been brought to a halt by the minor fact that a significant proportion of countries around the world are in lockdown right now but fear not hopeless romantics: quarantine is just encouraging more inventive ways to meet people, as proven by one TikTok couple that the world is now absolutely obsessed with.
Jeremy Cohen, a New York-based photographer, posted his now-viral initial TikTok last week, captioned ‘how to date while being in quarantined (part 1)'. Showing a video of a woman dancing on her rooftop across the street from his balcony, Cohen grabs her attention with a cute wave, which she reciprocates.
Then, genius strikes, and he flies his drone over to her attaching a note with his number on it, admitting ‘flirting is normally daunting for me, but since I’ve been quarantined in my apartment for a week now I was craving some social interaction’. Honestly, we can hear the furious typing of every Netflix script-writer already. The Tok finishes with a screenshot of their flirty text messages, before Cohen dramatically announces ‘like for part two’.
Five and a half million likes later, we got a part two.
We find out this mysterious TikTok dancing woman’s name is Tori Cignarella and Cohen has asked her for dinner: quarantine style. Somehow incorporating her roommate into all of this, Cohen has a dinner table set up on her rooftop while he sits on his balcony with the same microwave meal. They have their first date via video chat.
‘I told her she looked beautiful,’ he says – showing himself screaming from the balcony to her. ‘That date was going so well, depending on how long this quarantine lasts I might be in a long-distance relationship with someone that lives across the street from me.’
Announcing it was time to take their ‘relationship’ to the next level, Cohen tells his followers he’s going to make his most romantic gesture yet, we just have to ‘like for part three’. Honestly, a romantic and master marketer? What more do you need in a quarantine bae?!
Part three sees Cohen really take thing up a notch, telling his viewers ‘I needed to see her but I also wanted to respect the fact that we should be social-distancing.’ Blowing up a large, inflatable bubble with him inside it, Cohen crosses the street to Cignarella with flowers in hand.
‘I actually ordered the bubble a couple of days before I met Tori for a possible conceptual art project I would do,’ Cohen toldDazed. ‘I didn't really have a plan, just thought it would be cool to do something with it. I think the day of the first date is when I received the bubble in the mail and thought it would make for a perfect second date.’
Just because we’re social distancing doesn’t mean we have to be socially distant.
Cignarella comes outside, Cohen realises he can’t actually give her the flowers since he’s, you know, inside the bubble but they go for a walk as Cohen states ‘just because we’re social-distancing doesn’t mean we have to be socially distant’. An Instagram-philosopher too?! Please Cohen, give the other men a chance.
Then, in a dramatic plot twist, the pair are pulled over by the police. Would they break up this modern-day quarantine romance? No, they just wanted a selfie because they’d seen Cohen on the news when his first TikTok went viral. We love when the community comes together.
Honestly, we’re obsessed with this rom-com series and are impatiently waiting for part four. Or you know, our own cross-balcony love story – although that may mean we all have to start filming TikTok dances outside… maybe it’s not just for kids after all?
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