It took a breakup for Brooklyn-based filmmaker and writer Sarah Rosen to realise the pleasures of being alone during the pandemic. Rosen recounted her story in the recent Modern Love column for the The New York Times, sharing how her now ex-boyfriend broke up with her, just a week before her octogenarian neighbour succumbed to COVID-19. Where she had just about started coping with being cut off from her lover, her "neighbour dying alone in his apartment felt like a harbinger of more grief". "I was suddenly scared of being alone. I texted my ex to tell him what happened and to ease the unbearable loneliness this death had unleashed in me… We talked every day. He offered to do my laundry. And one night, after I was feeling better, we ate tortellini and watched a movie," she writes. This grey zone lasted for 18 days, until her ex asked: "What are the rules of a breakup in a pandemic?" There were none. Her experience had been unprecedented, with no guidebook or wikiHows to fall back on. They stopped talking soon after, and the writer slowly began to find the courage to enjoy her solitude in this new, diseased world.

Rosen's experience of heartbreak is as real, as the uncertainty around the global health crisis. The grief may not be the same, but the struggle of dealing with bad timing is not any different. In stark contrast to couples, over-relying on each other for emotional support during this period of isolation, there are a handful, who for the first time have been forced to take stock of what's wrong in their relationship. Choosing to call it quits, when life seems to be far from perfect, might then be a decision that is hardest to take, but sometimes also, the most important.

Mumbai-based freelance writer and editor Alia Khan, who met her boyfriend of two years at an NGO where she worked, says the lockdown exposed the cracks in their already crumbling relationship. "When we started dating, it felt like I had found 'the one'. Apart from sharing a deep connection, we both also had very similar views about life," she shares. The couple hit a rough patch six months ago. Khan says she is someone who craves physical touch, but her boyfriend was the opposite. "He didn't mind not seeing me for months on end." They were trying to work things out, when the lockdown was announced. "I was overwhelmed by everything that was happening around me, especially the fact that we were now doomed to be in a long distance association.

But he was zen, almost unaffected by the situation."