“I’m excited to go a bit buck wild and feel so much safer,” says Elena, a recently vaccinated college student. “Just go on a lot of dates, make out with some guys, nothing serious.”

The 20-year-old Salt Lake City resident, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, is ready to make up for lost time in her romantic life. She did some app dating during the pandemic, but Covid-19 was a constant presence, with several of her dates later telling her they’d been exposed (though she never caught the coronavirus). During quarantine, Elena spent time rehashing missed chances in her love life. “I was just thinking, ‘When I’m out of this, I’m going to make the most of every opportunity,’” she says.

In Manhattan, Marc Hernandez, a bartender at the cocktail bar Ampersand, says that even at 50 percent capacity, the scene — “which has always been one for first dates” — is already feeling like its pre-Covid days. “That gets me thinking that the summer is going to be a little wild,” he says.

“Shot girl summer.” “Vaxxed and waxed.” The “whoring 20s.” As the US becomes increasingly inoculated and the weather continues to warm, the number of Americans who are ready to date is on the rise: A Morning Consult survey for the week ending April 25 found that 53 percent of adults feel “comfortable” dating right now, up 9 percent from the last week in March (although women still feel less comfortable than men). Everyone from Andrew Yang to the bidet company Tushy — which is maintaining a herd-immunity countdown clock at CanIEatAssYet.com — are building anticipation for a hedonistic release of pent-up sexual energy.

“Hot vax summer is coming,” Insider proclaimed in March. “NYC singles ready for ‘slutty summer’ of casual sex,” screamed the New York Post. Clearly, many are ready to throw themselves back into the social melee. “Touch starvation” is real, and it can increase stress, depression, and anxiety. But after a year of such intense isolation, fear, suffering, and grief — and as the pandemic continues to rage across many parts of the world — the answer to how people will try to make up for lost time and lost touch is more complex than the orgiastic fantasy hawked by Suitsupply.

According to psychologist Amanda Gesselman, associate director for research at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, the pandemic has motivated American singles to look for partners rather than casual sex. While “there will [certainly] be people having the time of their lives” when it’s safe to do so, Gesselman says, “we actually found that people are less interested in no-strings-attached sex than they used to be.” In a recent Kinsey Institute study on post-pandemic sex (conducted in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Esquire), which surveyed 2,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, more than half — 52 percent — of singles said they want to find a committed relationship post-pandemic, while about only one in 10 said they’re looking for no-strings-attached sex.

“That was a bit lower than we expected, considering everyone’s locked up and has been for a year,” Gesselman says. That said, as most people have spent more than a year worrying about infection and thinking about how to protect themselves from germs, she reasons the mindset “might be extending to sex with unfamiliar partners.”

Ilana Dunn, co-host of the dating podcast Seeing Other People, says she’s been hearing similar feedback from listeners and friends. “Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, of course, I’m going to get really drunk and go wild for like, a week. Because we need to do that. But my goal is to find someone.’” In an Instagram poll that received more than 1,000 responses, Dunn says she was surprised to see 88 percent say that as people get vaccinated and the world opens up, they feel more inclined to look for something serious, while 52 percent said they’ll be open to hookups once they’re vaccinated.

Gesselman believes the pandemic has pushed many people to be more introspective about what they want in their lives, particularly younger adults. “When you’re in your mid-20s and you have your entire future ahead of you, and then you just sat through an entire year of social isolation and halted progress, it really makes you think about the things you want in your life,” she says. “I think a lot of people are thinking more towards what would make their future the best rather than what would be good short-term gratification.”

Meanwhile, condom companies are cautiously hopeful demand for their products will continue to grow along with the vaccinated portion of the US population. Male contraceptives saw a 2.5 percent uptick in sales at the beginning of April, according to Ken DeBaene, LifeStyles’ vice president of sales in the Americas, who says he’s “optimistic this is a return to more normalized consumption levels.” (Between late March and mid-April, the sexual wellness industry overall saw a 4 percent sales bump.) LifeStyles is looking at returns to employment in the hospitality and service industries, as well as colleges’ fall opening plans, to help anticipate demand, DeBaene added.

At LOLA, a feminine care and sexual wellness company, chief marketing officer Monica Belsito says both “self-play and partner play” have been prevalent this year, with the brand seeing a 40 percent spike in lubricant sales and a record number of preorders for its new vibrator. However, as vaccinations of younger populations increase, the company “expects STI protection to steadily increase, creating a demand spike in condoms this summer and fall.”

Many people are also searching for a historical precedent that can shed light on what awaits us in the post-Covid recovery period, from the Roaring ’20s — when the nation indulged after the ravages of World War I and the 1918 pandemic — to 1967’s Summer of Love, when tens of thousands of young people gathered in San Francisco to listen to rock ’n’ roll, experiment with sex and drugs, and protest the Vietnam War.

“If you look at the middle to late 1960s as an opening up after a period of considerable repression in the ’50s, I think the parallel is not unreasonable,” says historian Dennis McNally, who also worked as a publicist for the Grateful Dead. However, he points to the FDA’s 1960 approval of the first birth control pill as a key influence in the sexual liberation movement that climaxed that summer. Even after seeing the hordes of spring breakers that descended upon Miami in March, before vaccines were widely available to younger adults, McNally isn’t convinced the vigilant “pandemic safety” mindset will be banished with vaccines. “The message of all of this is that reality is dangerous, which is a very repressive lesson, and it’s going to take a while, I think, to unlearn that lesson and be able to go out and relax,” he says.

As for the Roaring ’20s comparison often attributed to social epidemiologist Dr. Nicholas Christakis, the timeline he’s laid out doesn’t predict a pendulum swing away from the risk aversion of the present moment until 2024, when vaccines will have been distributed around the world and there’s been more of a recovery from some of the pandemic’s economic devastation. He sees this summer as having the potential to offer “a taste of the past and a hope for the future,” Christakis recently told NPR.

Gesselman and Dunn also cite lingering pandemic-induced social anxiety as another obstacle to a bacchanal this summer. “A lot of people didn’t date last year, and I keep hearing from our listeners that people go on a date and nobody knows how to talk about anything besides Covid, and it’s not leading to good date conversations,” Dunn says. And in Gesselman’s research, one of the top fears respondents have cited is not having the ability to protect their own mental health as they reemerge from quarantine. “It seems like people’s biggest concern is when life opens back up and they’re finally able to pursue these connections, ‘What if I get rejected or things go wrong? What happens if disappointment strikes?’” Gesselman says.

Elena, the college student who’s excited to get back to more carefree dating, is also wary of the expectations she and many of her peers are putting on this post-vaccine summer. “I do think people have very, very high expectations, because you kind of need to live your entire life that’s been put on hold for the past year all in this summer, and if they’re not met it’s going to be tough,” she says. “But I think for the most part, people are really down to do anything.”

He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice — and it’s probably going to include hand sanitizer, face masks, and extra gloves. Not even Santa Claus is exempt from the struggles of 2020, despite the Trump administration’s attempt to get him early vaccine access, and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s assurance to American children that he has “innate immunity.”

While some retailers, like Macy’s, have nixed in-person Santa visits altogether, others, from mall operator Brookfield Properties to Bass Pro Shops, are adapting to meet safety guidelines by putting Santa behind plexiglass or offering families the chance to share their Christmas lists with him on video chat. 

Pandemic-era Santa visits have even spawned a whole cottage industry, from JingleRing, a new platform designed to simplify virtual Santa visits, to plastic snow globe tents. The Goods called four Santas — from The Real Black Santa, who’s learning a new virtual system in order to reach a wider audience, to an adults-only Santa figuring out how to translate his raunchy humor to Zoom parties — to hear how they’re approaching the 2020 Christmas season. 

The Plexiglass Santa: Chip Adams, 62, East Hartford, Connecticut

At Cabela’s here — and I believe it’s true chain-wide — they have a three-eighths inch, about 6-by-6 foot piece of plexiglass between us and the guests. Santa wears a face shield as well. When folks sit down for photos, they can take their masks off. Since I’m behind the plexiglass and a face shield, that makes me feel comfortable. It’s a pretty wide-open space, there’s a lot of air circulation. After every guest, the elves wipe down the seat, and every hour they wipe down the plexiglass.

It hurts when somebody brings up a 4-month-old baby because we can’t hold them — that’s one of the parts I think we all have difficulty with. But I’ll tell you, last night I had a 5-year-old boy. As he approached Santa, he started to run, full speed. And he kind of leapt and smacked into the plexiglass. As soon as I realized what was happening, I put my hand up and I steadied the plexiglass so there was no chance of him knocking it over. He looked like a cartoon — his nose went a little flat, his eyes were wide open, his hands were out, arms wide open, thinking he was gonna get to Santa. And he almost slid down a little bit. Then he shook it off and laughed and sat down and got his picture taken.

Some of the guys are experimenting with baby monitors. So we can put a baby monitor on [the guest’s] side that nobody touches, but we can hear the kids talking. We’re trying that out just to see if we can help because some of the kids are so soft-spoken. It’s a little harder to joke around with the kids, but they get it. I mean, one of the sad things is watching how comfortable these children are zipping their masks on and off. I think what people need to focus on is what you can do, not what you can’t do. If you worry about what you can’t do, that’ll just ruin the holiday.

The Virtual-Only Santa: Dee Sinclair, 56, Covington, Georgia

The virtual studio for me was not new. My company, The Real Black Santa, has been in business 19 years now, so it was easy for us to go virtual because we had the backdrop and the lighting, all the things that were necessary, from doing mall visits. The hardest part about it was learning the computer system OBS, which is what a lot of gamers use, and doing it through Zoom or Skype. With JingleRing, they have a proprietary platform that we’re using. Basically you just need a blue or green screen backdrop, and you get working. They brought me on as a brand ambassador, so they’ve got me doing videos for the company, and I’m also trying to get additional Santas to come on board. 

[Online], it’s still that same greeting that you have when you’re in the mall. But the good thing about it is Santa is actually calling you from his workshop. If they hear noise in the background, those are the elves, making toys. Mom and Dad have already given us some detailed information about what the kids got for Christmas the year before, how they were performing in school, you know, are they helping at home. As a Santa, you have to be a better performer, and know how to talk to somebody as if they were standing in front of you. 

Most guys who are doing Santa — we’re a little older. We’re in that category where we’re overweight, a lot of the guys are diabetic, have heart problems, and so forth. It’s hard for us not to be in front of the kids. And though I want to be out there doing events, I don’t want to be behind a partition while kids are in front of me. I think that’s more impersonal than not being there. And I’d hate to sit in front of 20 kids, and I have something or contract something and pass it on to somebody else.

I have a lot of clients that are still calling wanting us to do in-person visits right now. And as much as I want to, I’m shying away from it. Usually, the day after Christmas I’m getting event bookings for the following year. I had to cancel the ones that we’ve already booked. So yeah, this definitely is a hit on the pocket.

The Home-Visit Santa: Willie Williamson, 66, Marietta, Georgia

I’ve been working with my clients to determine what they’re expecting from Santa; some of them want Santa with the mask, some of them don’t. l show up at the residence, we’ll social distance, and then when we get ready to take pictures, I’ll get seated and then the kids will back up into me so that we’re not facing each other. Once the pictures are over, if they want to have a one-on-one with Santa, then I’ll put a mask on.

I’ve had 14 different masks made by a local seamstress, with snowflakes and reindeer and that kind of thing. I’ve bought tons of sanitizer, so I’m sanitizing before and after each visit. I bought an extra four dozen gloves, so I’ll change my gloves after every visit. I went ahead and bought two more suits this year, which will give me seven so I can change my suit every day of the week. I’ve got a UVB light set up in a closet, and I can also sanitize them that way.

My business is probably down 50 percent this year, but I’m seeing a little bit of an uptick in home visits. They’re around 60-40 indoors-outdoors. I looked into the Zoom thing, and to be honest with you, there’s a pretty good capital outlay. You have to buy green screens, cameras, and ring lights and backdrops and all that stuff. And I’m more about the personal visit anyway. That’s kind of why I don’t do the malls, because that’s more about the picture.

The weekend after Thanksgiving through Christmas, I’ve got 48 visits booked, and I usually run about 70 a year. I’m going to go try to get tested at least 14 days prior to that. I’ve also invested in a thermometer, so that if people would like to check temperatures, we can do that before we get started. I’m going to be cautious and use common sense. And if something gets out of hand, I will stop whatever we’re doing. But I’m not too worried about it. I’m probably one of the younger Santas around here, and I don’t have any underlying health issues. If I get it, I get it.

The Bad Santa: Rafe Wadleigh, 47, Tacoma, Washington

Gigs were starting to come in, and then Washington recently put a moratorium on gatherings larger than five. It’s definitely a big hit. In a normal year, I personally do about 10 to 12 [bookings] through the holiday season. It’s not a ton, but I can always depend on a good little paycheck in January from it. But also, it’s just super fun. 

My Bad Santa is the jolly, drinky uncle that comes to the party — like, you don’t want him to sleep over, but for 30 minutes, people love it. He’s fun, he doesn’t upset anybody, he tells all the ladies they’re pretty and tells some very off-color jokes. I have a lot of clients that come back to me year after year for corporate parties. Some of these groups have been coming back to me for years. I’ve always felt a little bit like a part of the family coming in on a special party night, like, “Remember, last year when you made that North Pole joke, and my wife spit up her drink?”

Usually, depending on the client, I’ll get a little bit of roasting information so I can come prepared to zing people. I’ll probably end up using technology a little bit, maybe some silly virtual backdrops that’ll kind of elevate the comedy, ideally. But nothing beats the live in-person improv in the physical space, right? You can still improv, but as we all know, these Zoom things are a little hard to manage, because people want to talk over each other and laugh, so that dynamic tends to be a challenge to kind of manage the flow of the party in the comedy.

But I think people are so hungry for connection right now. I think if anything, people will, to some degree, suspend their disbelief and be like, this is as good as we can get right now. Let’s really lean into it and enjoy the togetherness even if it’s through a screen.