In this week’s story, a woman meets a guy on Raya and has enjoyable sex for the first time in years: 24, single, London.
DAY ONE
7 a.m. My alarm goes off. I’ve spent the last few days in France with my parents and brother, who live there, and I’m flying back to London today. I text my ex to wish him good luck with the move — he’s finally leaving our two-bed flat after our breakup two months ago. We split for several reasons, mostly because he wanted more sex from me, and I wanted more intimacy and nonsexual affection from him; ultimately it just wasn’t right. It’s been very hard for me, though. I’m 24, and we were together for three years. He’s the only person I’ve ever slept with.
10 a.m. I board the plane and reply to Alex, a boy I recently matched with on Raya. Family vacations are significantly less insufferable when you’re talking to someone you’re interested in. Alex is 28 and works in tech. He has curly blond hair and a really nice smile. He’s wearing sunglasses in most of his photos, so it’s hard to really see his eyes. In one of his pics, he’s wearing a pink T-shirt and Sambas — and he’s with a dog, which is 99 percent of the reason I matched him.
5 p.m. I’m home. I sit and stare at the wall where my ex’s TV used to hang, now completely empty. Luckily, Alex texts at the right time to confirm our date this week.
10 p.m. I finally make my way to my friend’s flat in Hoxton, where we agreed to pre-drink for the club. She opens the door and hands me a negroni straight away. I drink it quickly.
1 a.m. After a long Uber ride, a long queue, a long security check, we’re inside Fold. Fold is the closest London comes to Berghain in Berlin. It mostly plays techno and electronic music. We head straight for the smoking area, where we get a couple of shots, smoke a cigarette each, and chat with some Italian guys. I find them irritating but also enjoy the attention. We stay very late, and I go home exhausted and alone but happy I went.
DAY TWO
8 a.m. At home, I take my makeup off as quickly as possible and crawl into bed.
12 p.m. My friend Jordan rings my bell, surprising me by showing up with his boyfriend, Matt, and my other friend Chris. We walk over to my favorite coffee place and talk about James, my ex. We all agree the breakup is a good, healthy thing.
2 p.m. Another nap.
5 p.m. My ex lets himself into the flat and gently wakes me from my power nap. He’s here to drop off his set of the keys. We talk for a bit and sort out some final bill stuff before he heads off. We hug, and I tell him I love him. He laughs and tells me he loves me too and reminds me we’re still going to be in each other’s lives, that this won’t be the last time we’ll see each other. I somehow feel that’s not true, but I’m okay with it.
9 p.m. Alex and I are texting about films, and our messages are spaced out every couple minutes versus the usual couple hours. He asks for pics of me at the club last night; I tell him I’ll show him tomorrow. I ask to see his Letterboxd, and he teases that he’ll show me tomorrow. Touché.
11:30 p.m. I send Alex one last text and call it a night.
DAY THREE
8:30 a.m. I wake up in a panic. I have work to do today, and I almost slept in! I throw on the first clothes I see, shove my makeup in my workbag, and run out the door.
12:30 p.m. It’s just me and Charlotte, my content assistant, in the office today. I’m a social-media manager for a fashion-tech start-up, but because it’s a start-up, it means I also do a billion other things.
2 p.m. After spending most of the morning doomscrolling TikTok and Instagram to “collate ideas,” we decide it’s finally time to actually produce a single piece of content. We grab our work phones, tripods, and lights and head for the company closet upstairs.
5:30 p.m. I hang around the office for an extra half an hour after Charlotte leaves, because I don’t know what else to do. Alex and I aren’t meeting until 6:20, and I’m a short 15-minute walk from the bar we’ve agreed on. Eventually, I decide to go to the nearby Pret so I don’t have drinks on an empty stomach.
6:13 p.m. I’m early, standing outside the bar. I start to get restless and fidgety and completely overthink exactly how I should be standing when Alex walks up to me. He smiles; we go in for a hug. He’s shorter than I had guessed (though still taller than me) but very good-looking, very much like his photos.
8 p.m. After drinks at the initial bar, we decide to move somewhere else. None of it is awkward, though we do interrupt each other a lot. There’s a lot of smiles and laughs. He makes a face when I tell him I smoke — mostly vape — and I make a mental note to never smoke in front of him.
10 p.m. Alex gets the bill, and we decide to walk around. This goes on for hours. Eventually, he offers to walk me home. Outside my flat, we keep chatting. I tease that I bet he’s had a horrible time this evening. He starts trying to explain himself and stutters mid-sentence. He tells me he’s having trouble thinking straight because he’s standing so close to me. I laugh and kiss him, having spent the past three hours wondering whether and when he would kiss me. We stand under my umbrella for a long while. It’s a good kiss. I tell him I’d invite him to come up but I don’t do that on a first date. He laughs and says he doesn’t either. That said, I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced wanting quite like this. We plan our next date for the following Monday; it’s the soonest he can meet because he has some friends visiting.
DAY FOUR
9 a.m. By the time I get to work, Alex and I have already exchanged a bunch of texts. I send him an article from the Financial Times to look impressive and well read but also because it’s a great article.
11 a.m. My date for this evening, another online guy, cancels, saying he has caught something coming back from NYC. This is the second time he has canceled; first, because he thought he was emotionally unavailable (just two weeks ago), and now this. Good-bye!
3 p.m. Alex is texting about our next date and asks the name of the company I work for. I tell him, and he says there are some pretty photos of me on the App Store page.
9 p.m. I stumble across a Substack post about nostalgia where the writer mentions something about riding her bike past all the sentimental places where the ghost of her younger self would be. It makes me think about all the places James and I existed together. Tonight I’m both sad and hopeful about Alex.
DAY FIVE
11 a.m. I have a hair-coloring appointment I’ve been looking forward to for weeks. My natural hair is brown, and I’ve been dyeing it ginger for the past year and a half; right now, my roots are nearly down to my ears.
12 p.m. I send Alex a photo of my hair, and he says it looks stunning.
7 p.m. Alex sends a photo of him and his best friends from university, explaining who’s who. I wonder why I need to know this information, but I’m also glad he shared.
9 p.m. I check my Raya and half-heartedly swipe through my new batch of potential matches. I’m not interested in any of them.
DAY SIX
7 a.m. First thing this morning, I have an uncomfortable conversation with my new flatmate about rent — it’s due, and she owes me. After my ex moved out, there was room for another body, so I rented her the bigger room and took the smaller one.
12 p.m. She passive-aggressively sends me double what she’s meant to send me and makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong.
3 p.m. Charlotte texts me about content we need to produce this week; I tell her I’m in a shitty mood and desperately need to snap out of it. Charlotte and I are real friends, not just work friends, and we are going out tonight with a few others.
8 p.m. My friends arrive at my place for pre-drinks before the party. The roommate isn’t around. Alex hasn’t texted me back in an hour and a half, so I text him a pic of my going-out outfit. He replies within five minutes, asking to see it. He asks me where we’re going, and I tell him about the event. He says he and his flatmate might go out in Soho. I point out that it’s right next door.
12:30 a.m. We’re finally inside the club. The music is weird, the people are weird, and there’s a serious lack of hot people. I try to just focus on having fun.
1:30 a.m. My friends are about to bail; no one’s having a good time here. Alex and I make a plan to meet quickly outside Soho House, where he’s hanging out.
2 a.m. He’s standing outside. I can’t kiss him quickly enough. We stumble over into a side street and kiss more. He asks me what we’re doing. I say we could go back to mine. He immediately grabs my hand and starts leading us to the bus stop.
3 a.m. On the bus, he takes my legs and puts them over his. When he’s not kissing me, he looks at my face intently. We get off at my place and walk up to my door. I tell him the only person I’ve ever slept with is my ex. He looks at me and tells me he’s not sure what I want him to do with this information. I laugh and say I’m not sure either. We head upstairs.
4 a.m. Granted I’ve only ever had sex with one person, but having sex with Alex felt like the easiest thing I’ve ever done. We were completely in sync. He knew exactly how to make me tick without me having to tell him. It was also the first time in a very long time I actually enjoyed sex. After we were done, we lay in bed chatting. He asks me why I kept pulling him up every time he tried to go down on me. I tell him that it just felt too vulnerable. Eventually, we go to sleep, and he cuddles me the entire night.
DAY SEVEN
8:30 a.m. I’ve barely slept. I look over at Alex, who reaches for me in his sleep.
10 a.m. Alex asks me if I’m awake awake. I say I am. He holds me and shuts his eyes. We lay there for a little while, silent, and then he starts playing with my underwear. I turn my head to him, and he starts kissing me. I melt. We have sex again. When we finish, he looks at me, sighs, and says, “That was intense.” I’m not exactly sure what he means, but I think it’s a good thing?
11 a.m. We get dressed and head out to get coffee and breakfast. I feel a little insecure with no makeup on. We walk through the park holding hands, talking, and smiling. I ask him if guys ever think about how quickly they respond to messages. He says “yes.” He also admits he didn’t accept my follow request on Instagram right away — to make me sweat. I’m not sure how to feel about that.
12 p.m. I walk him to the station. We kiss, and I say I’ll see him on Monday.
1 p.m. I don’t know what the etiquette is next. Is he going to text me? Do I text him? Did he just want the sex, and now that’s that? How would that make me feel? I did originally say I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but I also wasn’t expecting to like someone so quickly. Then Alex texts with a link to a café we had talked about on the bus last night. I send him a link to a bar I had mentioned too. He heart-reacts.
2 p.m. I decide to wash my sheets — I don’t want to feel attached to his scent.
8 p.m. I go see a friend for drinks, and the friend knows my ex. It’s hard to hear stories about him. I look down and see that Alex hasn’t texted me back since this afternoon. I open Instagram and see he’s posted Stories. Hmmm. I don’t know how to feel about any of it.
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