I Did the Thing I Said I Wouldn’t
My Raya Misadventures
So, I did the thing I said I would never do. And it was all in service of you, dear reader. As someone who is fundamentally opposed to the notion of dating apps, I swore I would never find myself on one. But then I thought, being so against them, perhaps I make an intriguing experiential candidate. And then, of course, shall dish out my unasked-for opinion. I’ll do one month, I said. I lasted nine days.
Going into this experiment, I truly was attempting to maintain as open a mind as possible. I wanted my hypothesis on dating apps to be proven wrong. Did I ever for one second wonder if I was going to meet my husband on there? Of course not. But I was hoping to converse with interesting people. Did I follow that thought to its natural end of meeting up with them? As the genius that I am, no, I had not yet recognized that you are supposed to actually go out with strangers.
For these nine illuminating days, I was on Raya, which is notorious for its celebrity ‘members’ (we will get to that) and screenshot ban (I will have to manually type messages I received later in this article). After a 24-hour wait period while they processed my application, I quickly set up a profile, eager to sink my teeth into this foreign delicacy. Though delicacy is overgenerous. I found my experience more akin to fast food at 2am.
At Cafe #1 (from my previous article The Café Curse: Modern Dating Has Gone IRL), my friend evaluated my profile, which consisted of a collection of photographs of myself (& one of my dog) and a one-sentence bio that read “looking for someone to start a book club with.” Instead of prompts like on other dating apps, Raya only asks for your profession, Instagram, where you live, where you are from, and a song to accompany your profile. I slapped on the ambiguous ‘Writer’ as my job and selected Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody. My friend concluded that my profile was “so wholesome.” I was content with this analysis, for I did not want to elicit sexual messages.
Ironically, the following day, I came across said friend’s arch-nemesis. I had to use my computer to film his profile in tweed hunting gear and on yachts in Monte Carlo, as I cackled so fervently that I shed a tear. I ‘swiped right,’ which, on Raya, is clicking the heart icon rather than the ‘X.’ We were matched, and, following unspoken Raya etiquette, he messaged me two days later. The messages went as follows:
Him: I’m certain we’ve never met but somehow your gaze seems familiar. Quite strange.
Me: No response.
My gaze? What does that even mean? Do girls actually fall for this? Considering how many dates my friend says he goes on, the answer to that question is a definitive yes.
Now, I shall offer the peak behind the Raya curtain you likely came for. Are celebrities actually on it? The short answer—yes. Upon joining, I was pleasantly surprised that the first profile I saw was a famous actor I have always found handsome. There are countless profiles with photos from the Vanity Fair Oscars party and Cannes red carpet. I also came upon soccer players (ones so famous even I know who they are) and Formula 1 drivers. For the most part, though, it’s men in finance. And they all have at least one photo of themselves running a marathon…
To further elucidate the typical Raya man, they are all 6’2” and taller… according to their bios. Which is, frankly, not statistically possible. (My friend later told me that apparently everyone lies. To which I replied, “I don’t get it because if you meet them in person, you’ll realize they most certainly are not over six feet.” She shrugged, told me I don’t understand this stuff because I’m not on the internet, and stabbed at her rigatoni.) It’s also not statistically possible that 70% of them are originally from Istanbul. Though perhaps that one has more to do with my personal algorithm.
In swiping through profiles, I had difficulty discerning between a heart and X because how am I supposed to know if I am interested when I haven’t experienced them in person? I don’t understand judging people based solely on what they look like in three photographs. Straightforward appearance is such a small portion of attraction.
I think back to the guys I’ve fancied. And it’s not their physical good looks that stick with me (okay, maybe their hair). For one, it was his scent, which I felt like a sucker punch to the chest anytime he came near. It somehow, even now, still lingers in my hallway. Or the way that other boy laughed with his whole body across the dinner table. Another one’s voice like cigar smoke and warm honey that could surely make anyone splinter at the knees. You can’t get any of that from random photos and a four-word bio.
My fear during The Great Experiment was that I would run into men I matched with in real life. As I walked home through the throng of loafer and suited Mayfair men, I was struck with a precise paranoia—what if someone recognizes me from Raya? What if that is my claim to fame: Raya? My whole body shuddered. To try to numb the pain, I had sworn between bites of overpriced croissant at Cafe #1 that I wasn’t on a ‘regular’ dating app (my friend did remind me that I have an unparalleled ability to selectively delude myself). For some reason, the swathes of private equity 30-something’s on Raya made it seem just like a virtual amble through my neighborhood. At least in my neighborhood, though, there is the possibility for eye contact.
The note that people often like to cite in favor of dating apps is “you wouldn’t meet them otherwise.” But with Raya, yes, I most definitely could. And I did… Two in one room, in fact.
For anonymity purposes, I shall give them pseudonyms–Martin and Zachary. Martin messaged me:
Him: What are we going to call our book club?
Him: Between the covers?
Me: No response.
I’m already skittish when it comes to dating, so if your opener has any sexual undertones, I’m not interested. I give new meaning to the term “slow burn.”
Please forgive me in advance because I am about to write quite possibly the most pretentious thing I have ever uttered (and that means a lot coming from me). Saturday morning, a dear friend and I ventured to an art gallery tour arranged by my members’ club. As we gazed upon works by Lucian Freud and David Hockney, I realized that Martin was in attendance with a friend. My greatest fear had personified. His friend, might I add, was particularly handsome in his linen ensemble. It was later, once in the comfort of my own living room, that I swiped through my matches, only to realize that one of them, Zachary, was linen man himself. We began messaging:
Me: What a small world.
Him: Well, the art world is a tiny place.
The art world.
He gave me exhibition recommendations for the remainder of The Great Experiment, which I welcomed. However, I fear we don’t have the same taste in art.
A few days later, at my gym, I saw one of the Mr. Forbes 30 under 30s who are peppered about Raya.
In terms of general messaging, I had some fun with it. Example:
Him: Write what
Thank you, sir, for no hello or question mark.
Me: Obituaries
I kept the obituary theme going whenever a guy asked me what I wrote but didn’t bother to put a greeting or punctuation, which was nearly all of them. I thoroughly amused myself. Perhaps this is why I don’t have a boyfriend…
But seriously, in the beginning, I was so confused—you’re supposed to talk to strangers ???
And then, when men started asking me on dates, I was even more confused—you’re supposed to meet up with strangers ???
Lord help us all.
A text I sent to a friend:
I think Raya is turning me asexual.
Luckily, you don’t get as many overt weirdos on Raya as you do on other dating apps. No one is sliding into your messages crudely asking to have sex with you, at least not in my experience. Though, perhaps with dating apps, it is a get what you give situation. Thus, positioning yourself as wholesome (or just as authentically as possible), like I did, is most beneficial. Many men messaged me about their favorite books, historical periods that interest them, etc. Though I remain steadfastly against the apps, I will say that, positively, “between the covers” was the most sexual message I received.
The Raya lore I had been privy to was that people don’t actually message you on there. However, I found that most of the men I matched with did message me. And they could be categorized into two groups:
Penpals
Non-communicators
Half wanted to engage in lengthy conversations over many days without necessarily suggesting an in-person meeting. The other half either messaged me, and after I replied, never texted again, or quite immediately asked to go for a drink without knowing a single thing about me.
I am especially terrible at replying to emails, and all these messages were starting to feel like my Gmail inbox. However, with my interpersonal relationships, I am an incredibly responsive texter. A problem with dating apps is their lack of personalness. They do not engender a sense of connection or even reality, so responding seems optional. It’s terrifyingly easy to forget there are actual people on the other side of these profiles. I have never experienced a man who asked for my phone number in real life ghosting after I replied to his initial message. With dating apps, though, we must recognize the oversaturation of options. It’s incredibly hard to text all of these people back. Who has the time?
My biggest question, though, is why are we robbing ourselves of one of the most exciting parts—the beginning? I fear people have collectively decided they aren’t worthy of it anymore. Worthy of their heart thumping in their throat as a guy stands beside them at that café down the street, and, even amongst the cacophony of morning rush hour, somehow all they hear is the start of his voice. Worthy of the laugh that pools out when a man cuts through the throng of people in the near-dark to introduce himself. When he is whole and real (and actually 6’3”).
It’s about ‘the look,’ the elusive look my friends and I as teens discussed ad nauseam on bedroom carpets and at tables of restaurants, whispering so no one else could hear. The look we practiced over and over again, only to finally be met back with a boy’s curious eyes and fold into who we really were, just girls. It’s about the feeling. The energy. The aura. And not in some new-wave bullshit way. It’s about the beginning. Call me a romantic, but don’t we at least deserve that? Not some guy with a two-word opening that he can’t even bother to press the “?” at the end of.
It comes down to a chicken or the egg situation. Are people on dating apps because they’re too insecure to meet IRL, or do people have low self-esteem because of these apps? Raya, Hinge, Bumble, the like—they aren’t real. They’re some distilled, cyber, pseudo version of reality.
The problem is that people are too afraid to go out into the world. To be real. Because what if the real you gets rejected and there’s no cyber persona to hide behind? No excuse to give, like “they didn’t reply because people don’t check the apps”? In a society that placates insecurity like a Band-Aid on a wound in need of stitches, it can seem appealing to lean on these apps, despite them almost never actually yielding a long-term relationship. Rejection is scary, but you keep on moving. Do you think that none of those guys with their scent, and laugh, and unrefined honey voice stopped calling? If we still sat outside Italian restaurants giggling at all the things I can’t remember now, would I be experimenting on Raya?
And for those who say there’s no other choice these days but to be on the apps, that’s a cop out. How about the fact that meeting in person is what humans have done since time immemorial? And you think you’re so evolved (more like devolved), so busy, live in such a complicated city, that you can’t do what all your ancestors have done? And you know how I know that you can? Because I live in a “busy” city and just yesterday got approached at the gym by a real-life man (no, not Mr. Forbes 30 under 30). You know how I know? Because everyone I’ve ever dated, I’ve met in person.
Also, the thing about dating apps is that both parties are inherently saying that they want to take the easiest route possible. How’s that for the start of a relationship? And yes, everyone knows someone who knows someone who met their husband on Hinge. But they are the exception, not the rule. The rule is men who can’t bother to punctuate. And if everyone got off of dating apps–scandal!–people would be forced to meet in person. How glorious!
I’ll leave you with a personal anecdote. There was a man I dated, whom, naturally, I met in real life at a dinner party. The first time I ever laid eyes on him, I was enraptured. I will never forget him standing in front of me, the way I gave that high school “look,” and the way he looked back. How I knew, caught in the web of his energy and he mine, that it meant something. How that energy, had it been the wind, would have knocked my limbs to the ground. Would I have gotten that from a few miscellaneous photos and a “hey natalie” message sandwiched somewhere between seven identical ones? Of course not. I would have, then, been robbed of a fundamental experience. Not to sound melodramatic, but I would have been robbed of life. Of that intangible essence that is dwindling before our very eyes in our self-conscious, isolated, cyber-saturated society. So, in earnest, I ask, why is everyone depriving themselves of the thrilling, nerve-wracking, sublimely fun part?
I believe for my next article, I shall write about meeting a new man a week IRL to prove that it is possible—not only possible, but preferable.