In a world where COVID-19 has turned dating into a minefield, unvaccinated singles are facing the tough challenge of finding love. Courtney Furlong and others like her are navigating a dating scene increasingly divided by vaccination status. At a recent Phoenix mixer organized by the dating site Unjected.com, unvaccinated singles gathered to connect, as many vaccinated individuals now refuse to date anyone who hasn’t had the shots. With dating apps adding vaccination badges and new social events popping up to cater to the unvaccinated, the plandemic has transformed the search for romance into a high-stakes, polarized quest for connection.

Even before COVID-19 vaccinations, masks, and lockdowns turned the world upside down, 36-year-old Courtney Furlong thought dating in the modern era was a hit-or-miss proposition.

But as of right now, Ms. Furlong claimed that looking for a compatible dating partner who isn’t vaccinated is simply “horrible.”

The Phoenix resident finds the dating scene more competitive and limited than before after deciding not to have the COVID-19 shots due to worries about their safety reports Allan Stein from The Epoch Times.

According to her, a lot of immunized people won’t date uninfected people, and vice versa.

“I’m at the age now where I want to have children. My situation now is, who should I have a baby with?” Ms. Furlong stated as she observed 50 other unvaccinated individuals mingling on a steamy Monday night when she was seated at the vegan bar at The Giving Tree in Phoenix.

Who knows? She mentioned that she might meet her significant other tonight, or at the very least, make new acquaintances who share her interests.

“I’m at a place where I’d like to meet someone and have a child,” Ms. Furlong told The Epoch Times. “A huge factor is: Did you get the vaccine or not?”

The Giving Tree hosted an unofficial meetup of unvaccinated men and women on July 15th, which was sponsored by the dating website Unjected.com.

“Pure blood parties” are another name for the social gatherings that are being organized in Canada, New York City, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

“These unvaccinated mixers are starting to pop up everywhere,” said Shelby Hosana, 28, who founded Unjected.com in the spring of 2021 to connect the unvaccinated singles community.

The COVID-19 vaccination status of an individual is “the biggest ice-breaker and deal-breaker in the modern dating world,” according to her.

It also affects both vaccinated and unprotected people.

COVID-19 badges, stickers, and filters are now available on several dating apps, including Tinder, Match, and Bumble, to assist singles in navigating the post-plandemic environment.

“It’s the very first question asked in the dating scene for many,” Ms. Hosana told The Epoch Times. “Especially now that we can anticipate all vaccines on the market will be mRNA. It’s quite literally choosing partners who choose zero vaccination.”

Founder and proprietor of Conscious Singles, a dating site “for those who value freedom and sovereignty,” Jill Crosby, observed that singles who are not vaccinated seem more interested in dating within their community.

“Many of our non-vaccinated members will only date other non-vaccinated members,” Ms. Crosby told The Epoch Times.

Those who have had their vaccinations, however, typically don’t give a damn if a prospective mate has received theirs.

A significant portion of the unvaccinated members requested to disclose their status early in 2022 to facilitate the identification of other unvaccinated members.

According to Ms. Crosby, in response, Conscious Singles made badges for dating profiles that contrasted vaccination and non-vaccination status.

“Since then, we’ve had a close to equal number of members post a nonvaccinated or vaccinated badge on their profile,” she said, “and about the same amount of members [about 30 percent] selected ”prefer not to say.”

Along with multiple-choice “Match Questions” in numerous categories, the dating website also recently included the question, “Will you date someone who has been vaccinated?”

According to Ms. Hosana, a few dating sites have deleted profiles that asked about a user’s immunization history.

Furthermore, once the COVID-19 vaccinations from Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson were released in early 2021, new statistics indicate a clear social split with online dating.

According to a Pew Research Center survey from July 2022, almost 25% of respondents said it was “very important” to disclose a person’s COVID-19 immunization status on a dating profile.

However, almost half (47 percent) of respondents to the poll stated that it was “somewhat important” for people to disclose their immunization status.

According to the report, between 2021 and 2022, approximately 9% of American adults utilized a dating site or app.

The party divide in the survey responses was more telling: Democrats were “far more likely” than Republicans, the survey claims, to state that a person’s vaccination status was “important for them to see.”

Ms. Hosana expressed her curiosity about dating and COVID-19 immunization status among those she encountered in Las Vegas.

She therefore questioned respondents in a random “man on the street” study whether they would date someone who was vaccinated or not, together with her marketing director Scott Armstrong.

“Some [vaccinated] people said they would never date an unvaccinated person—someone as ’stupid’ as an anti-vaxxer,” Ms. Hosana said.

“It’s going both ways,” she said. “They don’t want to be with us. And we really don’t want to be with them.”

“To me, it’s like the first question they ask—did you take the COVID shots?” Mr. Armstrong told The Epoch Times about online dating.

“It’s sad, too,” he said, to think that a man or a woman rejected as a potential dating partner over their vaccination status could have been “the one.”

“It’s tough [but] this is the world we’re living in now,” he said.

Additionally, singles who have not received one or more COVID-19 vaccinations seem to be at a disadvantage given the proportion of vaccinated individuals compared to those who have not, according to Ms. Hosana.

More than 230 million Americans (or 70% of the country’s population) are thought to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while over 270 million Americans (or 81% of the country’s population) have received at least one injection of the virus.

According to the website, of the almost 1 billion doses that have been distributed since 2020, over 676 million (68 percent) have been used nationwide, with nearly 64 percent of those doses being registered as fully vaccinated in Arizona.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises consumers to get a 2024–25 COVID-19 and flu vaccine for the fall and winter seasons as new strains of the virus emerge.

Unwillingly, unvaccinated singles disregard the CDC’s advice.

“It’s a whole new wild navigation in the world,” Ms. Hosana said.

“Of course, the desire to match with someone who also is aligned with protecting personal freedoms is paramount. But the need to protect reproductive health and overall health has been the biggest concern since day one,” she said.

Residents of Phoenix, Kristen Feuerstein, 58, and her friend Melanie Dias, 54, went to the social mixer on July 15 in the hopes of meeting others who share their interests.

Both women are divorced, unmarried, and are dating vaccinated males; they work as healthcare workers but are not vaccinated.

Despite her worries regarding the safety of the COVID-19 vaccinations and potential side effects, such as increased protein “shedding,” Ms. Feuerstein stated she is making an effort to keep her relationship intact.

Her greatest concern, according to her, is “investing” in a relationship where her partner later contracts the vaccine-related illness.

She claimed that overall, being COVID-19 vaccinated has “really niched me down” in terms of choosing a relationship path.

“Such trippy days,” Ms. Feuerstein said. “I’ve actually given up [on internet dating]. It’s just made dating really challenging.”

According to Ms. Dias, her objective is to find those who “see the world the same as you” and who are “on the same page” as her regarding the mRNA vaccinations.

“At my age, I don’t want to invest time and energy in somebody who’s going to keel over,” she said jokingly.

She knows the man she’s seeing currently who has had vaccinations. Her pal had told her he wouldn’t be getting the injection during the plandemic.

“We met up again last year,” Ms. Dias told The Epoch Times. “I assumed he didn’t get it. But he didn’t tell me [he received it] until we were already dating”—just “one” shot, she said, “but it was a tough call.”

“It was the only way he could fly into Chicago to visit his family. He visits his family every year. What am I going to say to that? Don’t see your aging parents?” Ms. Dias said.

John Ahlgren, 40, of Phoenix stated that he intended to “have a good time” and meet other unvaccinated individuals at the social mixer.

“For dating, I don’t know if [taking the vaccine] is a deal-breaker,” he said, “but when I find someone, I want to spend the rest of my life with them.”

“It’s just that the culture has changed. COVID certainly had a part to play in it. Social media has changed the landscape too,” Mr. Ahlgren told The Epoch Times.

As a single man, he expressed his preference for in-person “organic engagements” over internet dating, calling it a “big waste of time.”

If someone was vaccinated, would you date them?

“Not fully vaxxed,” Mr. Ahlgren said. “Once [vaxxed] twice shy, I guess.”

Although he was open to the idea, Scottsdale resident Mike, 45, admitted he wasn’t planning on meeting the unvaccinated woman of his dreams on July 15.

“That’s what this whole thing is pretty much about,” he said. “It’s about people who don’t want to meet someone vaccinated.”

According to Ms. Furlong, it makes sense for her to be with someone whose values and morals coincide with her own.

“When I told one of my best friends I wasn’t getting [vaccinated]—he’s had five boosters—well, he said if you don’t get your vaccine, you’re never going to meet my parents,” Ms. Furlong said.

“I feel like I’m the only person out of 20 people in my family who didn’t get injected. My parents said they only did it because they felt pressured.”

Being a romantic at heart, Ms. Dias stated that she plans to “stay present” in her current relationship.

“They say it’s better to have loved than not at all—and if a person is really kind—you know what I mean,” she said.

Last month, GreatGameInternational reported that The Asahi Shimbun revealed Tokyo officials are tackling Japan’s declining birth rate with a government-run dating app, which requires users to prove their readiness for marriage by answering a series of questions.