Those who don't have a house now won't build it either, Rilke already knew. Virus draws a clear dividing line between those who found love and those who are still searching. Holding on to love is a frenetic issue in this day and age. Those who break up, assuming they were already living together, with or without children and/or pets who also asked for nothing, have to move - and try moving a washing machine, for instance, in the one-and-a-half-metre society.
Searching, on the other hand, turns into a courtly affair. One learns of each other's existence, writes to each other, sends images and sound back and forth, and then, when we crawl out of our dens again in who knows how long and run towards each other, it is only to be hoped that the other does not feel or smell too strange - but even then, within reasonable limits, it is probably possible to move on happily together, because the couple has already been through so much together, following the principles of Stockholm syndrome and the rigours of a common hazing.
But: the new love will rarely last. When the pressure and isolation of the pressure cooker that is and hopefully once was corona will have dissipated, it will turn out that it was more attachment than love, and these attachments will dissolve into new, fresh flesh, which will consist, in fair proportion, of relationships that have reached the end of this era by the heels, but are now exploding with relief in orgasmic waves of free love.
Partners who made it through the virus together will simply continue to live as they did during corona, as Japanese soldiers who still fought on into the 1970s in the jungle, firing sharply at anyone who tried to come and tell them that World War II was over.
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