Dating can be wonderful, from the thrill of a Tinder match to candlelit dinners and drinks. But there's no denying that trying to have a "normal" dating life – whatever that looks like – amid a pandemic has been... challenging.
And that's without a parent looking over your shoulder at every message, emoji, swipe right and ghosting.
Pulling With My Parents is back with a brand new cast of unlucky-in-love singletons who have been brave, or stupid enough, to allow their parents complete access to their dating apps as they try and find love – or just some craic – in a pandemic.
For Rob from Limerick, his stint on the show was eye opening, but not in the way you might expect. "It was a really great experience", he tells RTÉ LifeStyle, "but what I actually learned from the experience was being happy to be by myself right now and to kind of grow as a person individually."
"I almost feel like I need to go through a detox", he says.
Having previously appeared on First Dates, Rob joined the show to make it clear to his mam that he wasn't the only one having a hard time dating. "Part of me kind of wanted to show my mom that I wasn't single because I was messing up. I wanted to show her the kind of things that we encounter."
Up until the show, he says dating had been "really hard". "I think I used dating as a distraction, actually, and to kind of fill something in my life that I thought needed to be filled. I was kind of distracted dating for so long and it never really worked out and I invested a lot of my time and energy in it. So I kind of gave up on it, to be honest."
The pandemic has only made this more clear for Rob, something many people will be feeling now. His two dates were filmed under some form of restrictions, and trying to break the ice without hugging or standing close together was a challenge.
"I think it was a very welcome ban on dating", he says.
With "normal" dating not possible now under Level 5 restrictions anyway, Rob is using the time to upskill himself, having started a podcast about dating. "But it was kind of nice to come to the realisation that, like, I'm single out of choice."
Rob's realisation didn't come before his mam and family friend Leona got shocking insight into dating as a millennial, though.
It's a case of too much information for Rob's mam 😱#PullingWithMyParents returns Monday, 9.35pm pic.twitter.com/F1orzHb3nn
— RTÉ2 (@RTE2) January 10, 2021
"She was really, really shocked at some of the messages that I receive or I'd send", he says. One exchange about certain activities prompted a noise from his mam that sounded like "she kind of died inside".
Explaining the differences between dating in his mam's time and dating now was a hurdle in and of itself. "Back in her day, it's like you might go on a date with someone and they could ask you straight away, 'do you want to be like my boyfriend or girlfriend?' That's not the way things are now."
"You nearly need to date someone for about six or seven dates and then you need to say 'okay, are we just mutually dating each other?' And then you do that for a while again and then maybe down along the line you have the conversation, like 'what is this?' And she was like, it's so drawn out."
Naturally, Rob's mum had her own opinions on how her son should be dating, and who. "I think my mom has this notion I pick a girl that's troublesome. I don't, I just like a girl who's a little bit wild", he says. "She wants to pick someone a bit quieter."
And his mum pulled no punches in nabbing a girl like that once she got hold of his Tinder bio. "They'd written up stuff like my favourite movie is The Notebook, 'let me cook you a romantic meal and we'll watch this together, I'll give you my coat on the way home...", he laughs.
"Weirdly enough, it actually attracted some matches."
Watch Pulling With My Parents tonight at 9.35pm on RTÉ 2.
