First published by The Times on 25 May 2020
These are tough times for single, lonesome entertainers. Just ask the Friends star Matthew Perry, who, having recently split with his talent-agent girlfriend, is reportedly back on Raya.
Raya, for the uninitiated, is a dating app with a difference — the difference being that most of us aren’t welcome. “Nasa scientists, cancer researchers, poets, painters” are the examples given on the app’s website of the kind of members it is looking for; to be accepted, you must possess “some special quality which would strengthen the community”. It sounds lofty in theory, but in practice Raya is known as the best place to score yourself a celebrity partner (or, more likely, a partner who had also been hoping to get off with a celebrity).
As a hopeful, you must apply and wait while the membership team sift through your social media accounts, photographs and job information, deciding which pile you belong in: remarkable or riffraff. You can improve your chance of success by asking a friend who is already a member to nominate you, although there are no guarantees. Anxious weeks can pass sleeplessly before, if you’re lucky, that golden alert will pop up on your phone: “Welcome to Raya.”
My friend Amy, 37, managed to get in with the help of a well-placed friend in the fashion industry; she laughs at the description on the website. “Well, I certainly didn’t see any Nasa scientists on there,” she says. “I saw Calum Best. Mostly it was models, influencers and obnoxious, rich-looking men sharing photos of themselves at vineyards and on yachts — and it really is focused on photos, not words. It was like going for a drink at the worst kind of London members’ club.”
However, it’s not just the tabloid lothario Calum Best, the son of the footballer George Best; the handsome comedian Jack Whitehall was apparently on there until recently too. And in Los Angeles, it’s a different ball game altogether. There, members have been rumoured to include, at one time or another, Ben Affleck, Channing Tatum, Drew Barrymore and Amy Schumer: bona fide A-listers looking for love in a pool in which they don’t have to worry about normals brushing up against their legs.
Who can blame anyone, whatever their chosen “community”, for trying their luck at a time like this? The magic of meeting a partner spontaneously — already bludgeoned into a critical state by the rise of online dating — has been dealt the killer blow by coronavirus. If you would like to have sex again this year and are not already living with someone willing, your options are rather limited.
Some countries are taking this predicament more seriously than others. In the Netherlands, unsurprisingly, the desire for sex is treated as a public health issue. Dutch officials have recommended that single people pair up with a “seksbuddy” (although the term was later removed from the Netherlands’ public health website after a media backlash) and agree between them to minimise contact with others. “Erotic stories” have also been mooted as a substitute for making the beast with two backs, should one of the backs find that it’s developing a dry cough.
Even in the US — not known for its sexual liberalism — the Oregon Health Authority has approached the problem with enthusiasm that borders on creepy. It has issued an illustrated poster that suggests masturbatory aids, “selective kissing” (within your immediate contacts only) and the avoidance, for safety reasons, of a sexual practice that is very intimate indeed. I shall only say it rhymes with “zimming”.
Sadly in the UK, our government is yet to offer any helpful advice for the frustrated; it’s a bit disappointing, considering that “romance” falls very much into our prime minister’s areas of expertise. The best we can do here is distanced dates, in which we use apps to pair up with strangers and sit awkwardly in parks, trying to establish a spark across two metres of grass. Still, if you can get on the right app, at least there’s a chance of meeting Calum Best.