NSW Health has issued a statement reminding dating app users that leaving the house for a one-night stand does not fly under “singles bubbles” regulations.

Under state regulations, people in NSW are allowed to form a “singles bubble” with one other person. The bubble allows for people living alone to nominate a single person to visit them in their home. You have to register this nominal bubble buddy and they have to live within 5km of your LGA. Tedious.

In a tweet published on Monday afternoon, health authorities reminded singles that meeting up with somebody on a dating app for a little how’s your father is not counted under “compassionate grounds.”

NSW Health went on to clarify that compassionate reasons to leave your home do include “visiting a person you are in a relationship with but do not live with.”

I’m not going to go against the word of health authorities but I’d argue that being seen to after a midnight viewing of David Cronenberg’s Crash is EXTREMELY COMPASSIONATE!!!

The area between “bubble buddy” and “intimate partner” has been murky terrain to navigate. It’s all very ambiguous. Essentially, an intimate partner needs to fit the following criteria:

  • Relationship to the exclusion of all others. (My thoughts go out to all blue-haired polyamorous Newtown couples.)
  • A degree of commitment towards a shared life.
  • The way the partners would present to the world at large. (Soft launch me so I know that it’s real.)

Lockdown is forcing those of us that are spiritually Samantha’s into becoming certified Charlotte’s. I feel like but a lowly victim of a couple-fixated society à la Yorgos Lanthimos The Lobster. 

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