During a time when it’s easy to feel disconnected from the rest of the world (and even your neighbors), one dating community is offering their members the opportunity to broadcast their social distancing experiences. That’s right, thanks to the introduction of live streaming dating from Plenty of Fish, you can now have real conversations with real people in real time. If that’s a little too meta for you, here’s how it works:

• Log into your Plenty of Fish account (Psst: this is a free dating site so you can make one if you don’t have one already).
• Look for the ‘live’ icon button and tab. (Currently, this is available to those hit the hardest by the spread of COVID-19: New York, Washington state and California. Within a week, POF hopes to be 80 percent of the United States, and then global by the end of April).
• Toggle through the top users and see what they’re saying in your area. (Men and women who are engaging, interesting and active will be listed on this page for others to find easily. Anyone can go live though, and who knows, you may even top the list!)

So is the purpose to find love? Sort of, kind of—but mostly it’s to help singles not feel so alone during an unsettling period of modern history. Since the option to meet face-to-face isn’t recommended (and even regulated in some areas), tuning into someone’s video and being able to interact in the moment can make you feel closer than a chatting conversation. 

If you happen to tune-in to someone’s live broadcast and you really like them, you can invite them to a private discussion via messaging, and perhaps have a phone call from there. “We recognize that right now, people around the world are faced with new realities of social distancing and isolation, and it is critical to maintain human connection,” Plenty of Fish wrote on their LinkedIn announcement of the Live feature. “As a technology leader, we are in a unique position to innovate quickly and create new ways to combat some of the anxiety singles may be feeling when face-to-face interaction is temporarily limited.”

What do you think? Will you use POF to feel more connected to singles like you, waiting out the pandemic? Tell us in the comments.