Valentine’s Day, the feast of lovers, will once again be celebrated against the backdrop of a pandemic this year with all its constraints that complicate the lives of those looking for a soul mate.
What’s more, in the region, other disadvantages can be added.
Julie Masson, a mother from Trois-Rivières in her forties, says that one of the biggest difficulties she has to juggle is the fact that she knows almost everyone in her hometown.
“When you know from the outset the habits of life, the places frequented and the life in general of people, it means that we sometimes wrongly deprive ourselves of going to someone on the pretext that we know their life”, believes Mme Mason. Also, according to her, a reputation will follow more closely people living in small circles. Labels can be attached for a long time, she points out.
The founder of the Quebec dating application GoSeeYou, Mélanie Trudel, noticed that people from Trois-Rivières do not hesitate to travel to major centers to meet new people, but that the reverse does not is not as true.
“People from Quebec and Montreal prefer to rub shoulders with people close to home,” she maintains, adding that, to help single people from the Mauricie, she has planned activities in Trois-Rivières when sanitary measures allow it.
And the question of celibacy might not be trivial in Trois-Rivières, capital of Mauricie, considering the most recent data from Statistics Canada. The region had a single rate of 44% during the 2016 census. It was then among the regions with the highest number of single people in Quebec after Montreal (51%) and Nord-du-Québec (45 %).
Originally from Saint-Hyacinthe, but now residing in Quebec, Bianca Gaudreault, 32, observes that the need to “fit in” is more present in rural areas where many people think of home and family.
COURTESY PHOTO
Bianca Gaudreault
“If you can’t find your partner at a young age in the region, it’s much more difficult,” she says, adding that a career woman can also have difficulty finding a partner.
Regarding the constraints linked to the pandemic, Bianca Gaudreault maintains that they make things particularly difficult for people who want to meet a partner.
“You can’t really meet someone in a public place. This complicates things. Who really wants to invite a stranger to their home? she wonders.
But the situation is not necessarily easier on Montreal soil, the city having its own reality with, in particular, its higher pool of singles.
For example, in the homosexual milieu, access to meetings is omnipresent, according to Jean-Maxime, who points out that the choices are very numerous.
“People will consume [et] to throw. Some individuals do not take the time to get to know the other and they say to themselves if it is not this man, it will simply be someone else,” he laments.