Posted on February 14, 2021 at 6:00 a.m.
–
–
Call of love
Edith Doyon is a dispatcher. Daily, she handles important calls. But if there is one that should not be missed, it was Marie-Dominique Duval’s. She certainly did not contact her at her place of work, but rather as part of a university study that the latter was carrying out last spring. The theme ? Find love in times of confinement. The researcher had thus registered on a host of dating sites, not to flirt, but to collect raw material for her study.
Continuing research interviews with volunteer participants, she ended up submitting the questionnaire to Edith Doyon, registered on one of these sites. But this time, the interview went into overtime, with sub-questions. “Once the interview was over, we spoke by video for three hours, it really clicked. Then we started to write to each other regularly… and we didn’t let go, ”says M.me Doyon.
After the university issues, here is another Rubik’s cube: between the health restrictions (we are in April, at the heart of the epidemic), their remote residences (one is in Magog, the other in Sherbrooke ), rotating work schedules, their inclinations for pleinairistes and sportsmen, as well as their respective children (four in total), not easy to find the right tempo.
“Of course it’s always a bit complicated to see each other, but we managed to manage it well. We went there gradually ”, indicates Mme Doyon. To simplify an already complex coronaviral context, Mme Duval moved to Magog, to accommodation nearby. The children? To the angels. “They are super happy, the chemistry between the four is going very well. Mine really appreciate my wife, I think that of my wife also appreciates me, ”says Edith Doyon.
Happiness catalyst for confined nurses
PHOTO PROVIDED BY LE-LE NGUYEN AND DANIEL BÉGIN
It is in the heart of a bubble (of containment) in a bubble (the northern village of Kuujjuaq) that Le-Le Nguyen and Daniel Bégin found themselves.
–
They had mourned long-term love. But for these two nurses, fate provided some special care, crossing their paths very far from worldly lives: Le-Le Nguyen comes from Montreal, Daniel Bégin, from Quebec, but it is in the Far North, in Kuujjuaq, where they work, that a flower grew as the epidemic swept the country. And if the latter has slowed down many enthusiasm in 2020, it has also created a favorable ground to hatch hearts.
“The pandemic did not force things, but served as a catalyst by accelerating them. The step of getting to know each other and getting to know each other on a daily basis would not have been so easy and quick, ”says the young woman who has been working in Nunavik for two years.
Especially since this region has established a curfew of several months in the spring of 2020, leading the new couple to spend entire evenings as a duo. “Being around each other on a daily basis very quickly makes it happen or it breaks. For us, it passed! In Kuujjuaq, we are already in a bubble, in a reality where everything happens faster. I have the impression that two weeks here is like two months in my life in Montreal, ”she continues. The dire need for housing in the village, combined with the desire to quickly share the same roof, led them to move in together. As part of the healthcare staff, the couple continued to work, creating some breathing room in their relationship.
“Frankly, I loved my year 2020,” says Mme Nguyen, who could just as easily fall in love with 2021: after an engagement in the fall, a wedding has been placed on the agenda next July.
“We are a bit on the highway of stages,” she admits. An exhilarating adventure in the pandemic grayness; to the point of giving yourself a little chill? “Yes, that’s a little scary,” she replies, laughing. But we love each other, we talk to each other about our apprehensions. And at the age we are at, we know what we want and we jumped in with both feet. ”
Hearts that sway in Ecuador
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARGAUX DE GUISE-ALARIE
Confined to adjacent homes with a shared courtyard in Ecuador, Margaux and Junior now have to contend with government travel and immigration restrictions, making it more difficult for them.
–
Two meters is already a lot for new couples. So imagine 5,000 kilometers … It’s the distance that separates Margaux de Guise-Alarie from her Ecuadorian lover Junior Covo, met in early 2020 in full confinement.
It all started in the Galapagos Islands, where the Quebec biologist had gone to do volunteer work. Between the study of two giant tortoises, a microscopic virus suddenly forced the world to shell out. Curfew and confinement forced her to stay, with another volunteer, in a house loaned by the national park. This had a courtyard shared with the adjacent dwelling, where military sailors, including Junior, were parked. “Little by little, we got closer, since we shared the same land, then we put all our resources in common”, says the one who thought that the situation would not go on forever. But the entire group was stranded on the island until July before they could return to the mainland; time to forge strong bonds. Released, but now united, the new couple were able to travel around Ecuador and visit the military’s family.
However, Margaux, who initially had no plans to return to Quebec, had to resolve to do so in October, all of her volunteer projects and contracts with NGOs having been shattered. The relationship has since continued online, with daily communications and the establishment of a plan for the Ecuadorian to travel to Canada on a visa. A maneuver made more complex by regulations that seem nebulous to them and the imposition of a quarantine of three days in hotels at a hefty cost of $ 2,000. “It’s not so much the distance that is difficult to live with, but rather that there is no way of knowing when we can meet again because of government rules. We have no information, that’s what is frustrating, ”laments the one who does not rule out heading back to Ecuador and embarking on the preparation of a remote master’s degree.
Active and in love: “We pinch each other every day! “
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Sylvie Vachon and Pierre Blais met thanks to the Rencontre sportive site, in May. They have developed an unfailing bond, with common values and interests. “I had a list of more or less negotiable criteria, it blew up all the boxes! », Says Mr. Blais. Since then, in the Mont-Saint-Bruno park, we can observe the passage of these two lovebirds.
–
Staying active and fighting isolation were two great challenges of 2020. Sylvie Vachon and Pierre Blais took them up brilliantly, discovering a number of hooked atoms while the virus stormed Quebec. They had just returned from a cross-country ski tour when we spoke to them, telling them how the “Sporting Encounter” platform was the ideal ground for their meeting.
Mme Vachon arrived in a new league: coming out of a 30-year relationship, freshly installed in a new environment, established by telecommuting. M. Blais kept his eyes open, never giving up.
Realizing that they had many common visions and that they lived within 1 km of each other, they did what hundreds of singles tested last year: walk together. It must be said that they have an extraordinary backyard for that, named Parc national du Mont-Saint-Bruno.
This first walk then led them on increasingly luminous paths, which even the pandemic has never succeeded in obscuring: “The context of COVID did not represent a challenge, thanks to our proximity and our compatibility , we created our own bubble a little while we could no longer hang out with others, such as that of friends, ”says the couple, who together enjoy telemark, tennis, cycling, cross-country skiing , walking or snowshoeing in nature – without fearing a spa or a good meal.
And they weren’t the type to let themselves be put in the wheels of happiness, whether it was through confinement or having passed the age of fifty; threshold beyond which many single people feel discouraged.
“We pinch each other every day. We share this great happiness because we know that it is difficult for many people now. We would like to send the message that once the right person has been found, we go through it much more easily. We must not let go! », They launch.
–
