During a normal summer, Honey Goodenough, a puppeteer, clown, and educator would be busy teaching and performing, with little time to spend online dating. And in 2019, Goodenough, having given up on finding a life partner, was trying to get pregnant on her own through fertility treatments.

Enter COVID-19.

As the pandemic shut down Goodenough’s in-person work and the fertility clinic, a friend set her up with the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel. There, she met Kenneth Dyer. Their first date: a seven-hour Zoom conversation.

After a week of video chats, they had their first in-person date at the puppet theater where Goodenough works. Goodenough was attracted to Dyer’s old-world gentlemanly vibes, and the way he carried a cloth handkerchief and pocket knife.

Through Zoom chats, they fell in love. Goodenough rejected the sperm donor and asked Dyer to father a child with her.

Within one year, during a global pandemic, the couple met, fell in love, got engaged, had a baby, and got married.

“I just thought I love the very poetic [idea] to get married exactly a year later at the place that you met at the time that you met and that we would be standing there holding our six-week-old. It felt really special to me,” Goodenough said of their wedding.

The couple told their story on Mass Reboot, a Codcast series examining how COVID-19 affected Massachusetts, in an episode focused on love. With in-person dating options seriously curtailed by the pandemic, the podcast found that COVID-19 has drastically changed how people meet, date, and break up.

Meredith Goldstein, the Love Letters advice columnist for the Boston Globe, said some people had entire relationships in the context of a pandemic. The new partner never met the person’s friends, the couple never saw a movie together. “This was like if I meet someone and break up with them and no one ever saw this, no one was ever a witness to this, how do I process what happened?” Goldstein said.

Goldstein said the pandemic changed relationship dynamics. If a couple had been on three or four dates pre-pandemic, they had to decide if they were serious enough to bubble together.

At the start of the pandemic, online dating platforms saw participant numbers decline, which Goldstein suggested may have related to dating fatigue. People tired of dating were given an excuse to take a break.

“That was for some people a real load off, the idea that just by staying home and not going out and not trying to be in the face of someone else, they were helping the world,” Goldstein said.

But for people seeking a life partner, Zoom dating is complicated. Goldstein said there were some advantages for people working from home and used to communicating online, and for people who wanted to meet someone in a home setting without having to pay for a date. But people worried that they had never seen their partner in certain situations – like at family gatherings.

“Everybody was sort of like, well, am I making this decision because of a global pandemic and how it feels like? What would this feel like in normal times?” Goldstein said.

Even for those who met their match, love was not without complications – like wedding planning.

Eden Heller and Dan Hopkins got engaged in May 2019 and planned a July 2020 wedding. By May 2020, it became clear their guests would not be able to travel.

“It was a really traumatic time. And it just felt like during all of this trauma, we really wanted to be married,” Heller said.

The couple decided to keep their wedding date but get married in a park with 25 people attending. Their Provincetown honeymoon was stressful.

“It was one of the most stressful three to four day periods of our lives because we were concerned that we had just killed everyone that we love,” Hopkins said.

Luckily, there was no COVID at their wedding. And like so many other couples comprising this summer’s wedding boom, they threw a big party this July, with caterers, music, and all their original guests, once people were vaccinated.

SHIRA SCHOENBERG

FROM COMMONWEALTH

Shift to cities: New Census data indicate the state’s population is becoming slightly more diverse and migrating more and more to cities. Overall, the population of Massachusetts grew 7.4 percent between 2010 and 2020 and is now the 15th most populous state in the country.

— Boston saw its population grow by 58,000 over the last decade. All of the state’s cities grew except Holyoke; Revere grew the fastest, rising 20 percent to 62,100. By contrast, the western Massachusetts counties of Berkshire and Franklin saw their populations decline.

— Massachusetts became slightly more diverse, moving from 27th to 26th out of 50 on a Census diversity scale. According to the new data, Massachusetts is 67.6 percent white and 12.6 percent Latino. Asians surpassed Blacks in this Census to become the third largest racial or ethnic group in the state, at 7.2 percent. 

— The new data will be used to redraw congressional and state legislative districts. The declining population in the western part of the state will mean congressional districts there will have to expand further east. Boston will pick up another legislative seat because of its growth. Read more.

Bonuses for some: Some unionized state workers have already received premium bonus pay for working during the pandemic, despite Gov. Charlie Baker’s claim that such decisions should be publicly debated. Earlier this week, a deal was signed with the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union to give members a $2,000 bonus. Read more.

OPINION

Mask up: Melissa Winchell of Bridgewater State University and Worcester School Committee member Tracy O’Connell Novick call on Baker to mandate masks in schools this fall. Read more.

Keep the statue: Author Jeffrey Boutwell says the Emancipation Statue that used to reside in Park Square shouldn’t be shipped away but exhibited in the Museum of African American History. Read more.

FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Advocates are pressuring the Legislature to extend eviction protections for tenants well into next year. (Boston Globe)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Boston’s acting Mayor Kim Janey requires all city workers, contractors, and volunteers to be vaccinated by October 18 or submit to weekly testing. (GBH)

Attorney General Maura Healey is suing the Boston Police Department over its refusal to comply with a public records request for information related to the firing of former police commissioner Dennis White. (Boston Herald) 

Quincy’s population has grown by about 10 percent since 2010, according to Census data. The South Shore’s most populous municipality is also significantly more diverse, with its Asian, Black, and Latino communities growing and its white population shrinking but remaining the majority. (Patriot Ledger)

The Swampscott select board opposes a plan for Logan Airport to route more air traffic over Swampscott. (Salem News)

Great Barrington is suing a 640-year-old former tax collector for $150,000 she allegedly stole. (Berkshire Eagle)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

The FDA authorizes a third dose of a Pfizer or Moderna COVID vaccine for individuals with weakened immune systems, including those with organ transplants or certain types of cancer. (Associated Press)

As COVID-19 rates rise in New Bedford—where vaccination lags behind the rest of the state—Mayor Jon Mitchell will require most unvaccinated municipal employees to be tested regularly for the virus. The city’s students will also need to mask up when they return to classrooms this fall, adhering to the same policies established for in-person learning last year. (New Bedford Light)

Sticker Shock, an education campaign to keep minors away from alcohol, uses stickers to remind adults in Middleboro of the effects of substance misuse. (South Coast)

Leo Costinos, an Attleboro resident who works at a financial firm, and Lilla Eliet, an eighth grade student from Reading, are the latest winners of the VaxMillions lottery. (MassLive)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

New York City defies predictions of its decline, adding 629,000 people over the last decade. (New York Times)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushes her tax ideas, including for a tax on wealth, in a Washington Post op-ed. 

ELECTIONS

The Globe profiles Boston mayoral candidate Michelle Wu, whose life and outlook on the role of government has been shaped by challenges faced by her immigrant family. 

Population growth over the last decade means Boston is likely in line to gain another state representative district, according to the 2010 Census figures released on Thursday. (Boston Herald) 

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Unemployed workers are facing the loss of federal expanded unemployment benefits – including a $300 a week bonus – on September. 6. (Gloucester Daily Times)

ARTS/CULTURE

Agricultural fairs are returning around the state after a year’s hiatus. (Telegram & Gazette)

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

It took three years, but Middleboro is finally attacking weeds in the Nemasket River, armed with a hard-won EcoHarvester. (South Coast Today)

The northeast experienced the most significant temperature increases in the continental US over the last 125 years. (MassLive)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

A former auto mechanic for the Boston Police Department faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling over $260,000 in supplies for the department that he then resold on the side. (WBUR)

MEDIA

Laura Manley is named the new executive director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School. She currently heads another center at the school.