Best first date of my life… then lockdown

I went on the best first date of my life in an East London coffee shop exactly one month before lockdown. He was tall, smart, funny, and put his card down to buy me an oat milk latte without hesitation. If I can find a guy who has a job and no criminal record in london it’s a miracle. If he is employed AND also buys me coffee? There is probably something wrong with him. 
As it turns out, there was nothing out wrong with Corona bae (or at least nothing glaringly obvious) and thus I was determined to trap him. Before March 23rd we went on four more dates, and slept together twice. The last night we saw each other was 12 hours before my flight back to Canada (I’d decided if the apocalypse was coming I’d better be close to my parents Costco card and l fully stocked fridge and free healthcare). As I was leaving I suggested we do a “question of the day” where we ask each other a question just to stay in touch. “I like that” he smiled. “How long can the questions be?” I laughed “wait let me check the question of the day corona edition rule book- I’m sure section C will have some word length guidance.” 
We reveled in it at first- getting to know each other at a deeper level. “who is your role model and why?” He would ask- prompting us to chatter away all day. We kept it up for an impressive amount of time. “What do you regret most?” I asked. “Ohhhh good question” he mused. “I’ve decided I don’t really belive in regret” he replied a few hours later. One time I tried to make things sexy “what’s the best sex you’ve ever had?” He balked at the question and didn’t lean into any of my nudges to spice things up. But unfazed we kept chatting and persisted with more PG13 questions of the day (much to my chagrin) 
7 weeks in of voicenotes and texts he finally FaceTimed. It was awkward at first- learning to interact with each other as we normally would, not punctuated with a pause for reply- but we spoke for an hour. When I hung up, after having smiled and laughed through a 52 minute international call, I had a sense of dread. We were perfect, and yet we were both so sad. So distant. Life was so... draining. 
It’s been almost two months since I’ve left London, and I’m heading back in two weeks. We’ve made it this long, but the spark of our magical first date seems to be fading- crushed perhaps by the invisible weight of a global pandemic. Would we have been better not speaking at all? When I get to london will I be able to place his hands, his lips, his body, to the hours of voicenotes and texts sent back and forth over the Atlantic? I don’t know. All I know is that it doesn’t feel like new love- it feels as though the virus has seeped into the lungs of romance. Infected it’s joy, suffocated it’s naive optimism, and drained its magic. And I desperately want to breathe again.