It’s a Friday night, and I’m nervously spritzing on the perfume and adding another layer of red lippie, ready for my first date in a year and a half.
I have never done online dating in my life, but with 4.9 million UK adults on ‘the apps’, I’ve decided to give it a go.
For years, my friends have regaled me with their own tales of romantic conquests, featuring men trying to bed them after a warm pint, or worse, finding out they’re married with children – so I’ve stayed far away.
But, now that my son is seven, my friend Harriet has hissed at me ‘to join Raya‘.
Raya is seen as a more exclusive offering in the sea of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, a favourite with celebrities including Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron and even Lily Allen, who joined the platform (but only after catching her ex-husband, David Harbour, ‘cheating’ on it).
Only eight per cent of applicants get accepted, and many of the members are actors, singers, entrepreneurs and influencers with huge followings.
The app works by accessing your contacts list to see who is already a member, and then you join the 100,000-strong waiting list, often with a waiting time of up to two years.
I spy a guy I met at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and ask him to verify me.
Annette Kellow (pictured) decided to brave the world of online dating by trying out celeb-beloved Raya
This is new territory for me as I’ve always managed to meet guys in semi-normal situations; at events, cafes and at the meat counter in Morrisons. Even my son’s father hired me to sit for his paintings, and well, things progressed from there.
I’m a bit of a hippie and always believe people just fall in and out of your life naturally, not deciphering if you can meet them because they’re wearing Crocs in their profile pic (instant no btw).
Astonishingly, I’m accepted pretty quickly, with their first port of call checking my Instagram to make sure I fit the sparkling Raya aesthetic.
I must have blagged my way within an inch of my life, as my boring feed features a couple of broadcast bits and pictures of my son. But suddenly, I find myself paying the £20 a month fee and adding my best sultry photos to boot.
I can’t decide what to write on my profile; frizzy-haired, frazzled single mum doesn’t have a very diva Raya ring to it, so I just put, part-time journalist, full-time champagne drinker.
As I start swiping, I suddenly feel like a kid in a sweet shop.
Rather than limit members to your local area like conventional dating apps, Raya shows you people from all over the world.
Hollywood actors like Chris Rock and Sam Claflin start popping up on my feed. I decide to swipe them all for the sheer hell of it.
After a series of checks – including a scan of her Instagram – the writer was accepted onto the dating app
If they look a bit of a nightmare, posing on a yacht with a glass of fizz, I heart them just for the plotline.
Suddenly, a pop star from days gone by slides into my DM’s.
A singer, best known for one hit in the 2000s, messages me from his hotel bed asking, ‘Wanna come over?’
I can’t, so I ask to meet for a drink the next day, and he ghosts me.
Not one to be put off, I decide it’s time for some real-life dating, and so I arrange to meet an investment entrepreneur.
We meet at his swanky Mayfair members’ club, full of marble fireplaces and sparkling chandeliers.
When I arrive, he’s already half a bottle deep, and I sit down at a table so close to others you can hear every dreg of their conversation.
‘What do you like to eat?’ he asks.
Annette matched with a number of high-flying VIPs – and even a pop star – on her journey through the dating app
I normally pick up food from Olio, a food-sharing app that lets you rescue free supermarket leftovers that they would otherwise dump.
The mums at school and l have a syndicate going on and our fridges are full of Waitrose chickens and Pret sarnies, but I realise that makes me sound a bit iffy so I just say, ‘the Ritz’.
After a couple of glasses of red, he declares, ‘You can be my girlfriend. You are now my princess, and I’m your boss.’
I almost spit out my wine. ‘What?’
The next-door table is really listening in now.
‘I like to make snap decisions,’ he says and then leans in for a snog. When I pull away, he starts shouting, ‘You’re not shy, are you? Are you shy?!’
The food hasn’t even arrived, and I say sorry and run for my life. He sends me a message the next morning telling me I’m still his princess, but I make an excuse not to meet.
My first experience of Raya must have just been a bad egg.
I notice a lot of guys on the app are adventurers, attending Burning Man, with topless photos in exotic locations. Their profiles say things like ‘rainforest lover’ and ‘I have designed the life I desire, so you should know how to have a good time.’
My idea of a good time is spending the whole weekend in rollers, deep cleaning my shoebox of a flat; hardly the behaviour that sets pulses racing in Mayfair.
Still, I’m excited to meet the next guy – a private jet entrepreneur with a whacking estate, who invites me to watch Polo in Windsor.
I cheapskate it for four quid on the Green Line, and my taxi to Guards Polo can’t find the location, so the driver barks at me to get out in the middle of nowhere.
‘I’m lost,’ I explained to my date frantically, sending him screenshots of maps.
‘Just arrived in my car. Haven’t got a clue where you are, but I’m sure you can find me,’ he sends smoothly.
I see on my map that if I hike through the woods, I will reach him, so I begin… in 4-inch heels.
He does not offer to find me even after I joke about being murdered. No amount of private jets or estates could lift my spirits with that non-chivalry as I forlornly eat my prawn cocktail and he waffles on about polo for a full two hours.
I decide there are probably some nicer chaps closer to home, and that’s when a local Notting Hill, Hugh Grant type, pops into my inbox. His family are all old-school Etonians and have lived in the area forever.
We meet for a coffee. I know! Shera 7 fans will be screaming from the rooftops, never to do a coffee date! But at least I could suss him out without any eating commitments.
We start on the Portobello Road as he explains his favourite coffee shop is ‘just up the road’.
Two miles later, I’m sitting on the cold concrete floor of a mews drinking coffee that tastes awful. He offers to go running for the following date. Next!
I decided to go with the flow. As my friend Harriet – who serial dated for six years until she found her dream man – tells me, it’s all about consistency.
So, keeping it consistent, I meet with an American film company owner and producer of several Apple and Netflix films, who asks last minute to meet at the Charlotte Hotel for lunch.
He is a very quiet, studious type. He doesn’t ask me a single question, and a few times I let the silence lapse just to give him space to talk. He says not a word.
This man must have the real ick on me, I conclude.
When I get home, he’s added me on LinkedIn, Instagram and messages me to say, ‘had a great time, when can we do it again?’
I’m shocked! And, they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch! I decide for my next date, I need to do a safe bet, no last-minute meet up, someone friendly, and personable.
I am matched with an Italian presenter. He asks me to pick my favourite restaurant, and I suggest The Wolseley. Who knows, I think, I may get some broadcasting tips!
This date is very friendly… oh, and quite handsome. But he’s also a full-time bachelor, hot spotting from Rome, London and New York, even though he’s creeping 50 with the grey hairs kicking in.
Afterwards, he says he might be in London again soon, but poof, he’s off to Italy, and the only contact I have with him is when he occasionally spies on my Insta stories.
I have realised the world of online dating, exclusive app or not, is simply exhausting.
The matching, writing, arranging to meet, getting a hunt of chemistry, the games, ghosting, the getting to know each other; it just feels completely unnatural, and frankly, I’m not spiritually aligned for such a full-time time unpaid administration job.
I feel thankful as I reach for my phone to delete Raya, knowing that I’ll be booted off anyway for revealing the reality behind the glitz and glam.
For me, the real world is where the excitement is.
Maybe I’m stuck in my ways, maybe I’m old-fashioned, but Raya dating is the pits. So, I’ve decided to leave it to fate, and instead, I’ll stick to the meat counter in Morrisons.