When I first re-entered the world of dating a few years ago, it was via Raya. You’ve heard of it; it’s the invite-only “celebrity” dating app (it’s not, not really; it’s a few celebrities mixed in with a lot of “photographers,” “Instagram models,” and a horrifying preponderance of Burning Man enthusiasts).
Over seven or so years I went on a lot of one-time-only dates, and ended up in a handful of short-term relationships. My longest was actually a long-distance COVID-era situationship with someone living across the country during which we mostly browsed the Williams-Sonoma catalog over Facetime on Sunday mornings, and only met up in person once. It was lovely, and we’re still besties even though both of us have been in relationships with others for a long time since.
Which brings me to something I find kind of remarkable: Virtually all of the men with whom I had what I’d consider consequential connections — meaning that we cared for each other and gave it a decent shot, only to realize that a partnership wasn’t in the cards for various reasons — remain in my life. In each of these cases (which can be counted on one hand; come on, I don’t have that much free time) we recognized relatively quickly that while we weren’t right for each other romantically, we would make for excellent friends. (Related: Raya should probably start paying me to be an ambassador, because while it didn’t do the job it intended, it did a different and infinitely better one. HMU.)
