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What is 'Fauci-ing'? Anthony Fauci laughs at new dating trend of avoiding Covid-19 'non-believers'

It is defined as 'declining to date someone because you don’t feel they are taking Covid-19 seriously enough'

Have you got around to 'Fauci-ing' anyone yet? If you didn't know what that means, it's the latest dating trend that has been named after President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, which comes in handy for people who want to restart their love lives amid the ongoing pandemic. 

The term was first introduced by the Plenty of Fish dating site. According to Urban Dictionary, “Fauci-ing” is “Declining to date someone because you don’t feel they are taking Covid-19 seriously enough.” Incidentally, another term popularized by the dating site related to the particular dating trend was “maskerading,” which was the act of pretending to care about coronavirus protocol just to impress a potential partner. 

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As for Fauci, who is one of the top infectious disease experts in the country, and has done everything in his power to warn citizens about the safety precautions to maintain during the raging health crisis, he found out that the latest dating trend was branded on him during an Axios interview, which was teased by HBO on Valentine's Day.

"What does it mean?" he asked with a smile when he was asked if he had heard of the trend. The clip of the interview was shared on Twitter. "It means cutting off a relationship if you don't think that that other person is serious enough about social distancing and taking the pandemic seriously. Like oh, I Fauci’d that guy," interviewer Margaret Talev explained.

“I’m gonna ‘Fauci’ you,” he laughed in response adding that he appreciated the dating trend. “It would be really frustrating to essentially semi-isolate yourself at a time when you’re trying to explore social interactions with people,” Fauci told Axios. “That leads to a considerable amount of stress and maybe even depression on the part of some people.” However, Fauci might not need to 'Fauci' anyone as he’s been married to Christine Grady since 1985. 

Fox News also covered the trend in a segment, pointing out the ridiculousness of the trend and the fact that it was named after Fauci.

Most people on social media also did not get why there was a separate dating trend for something that was just a sensible precaution to avoid contracting the deadly virus. "And here I thought it would be some weird new sex thing," one of them noted while another commented, "I believe that's called Survival Instincts." A third remarked, "It’s like an IQ test whether you agree to an in-person date or not!"

One more quipped, "So in other words, there is no 'new dating trend."' A commenter tweeted, "Some of us just call it 'common sense.'" One more said, "Also known as avoiding the lower end of the gene pool." Another reacted with, "I hope to one day be associated with Dr. Fauci for more than just shooting down dates." A person noted, "Normal people call this "refusing to date dumb conspiracy theorists."