When to delete Raya

Are you really 'here for friends'?

Paid readers: scroll down below the paywall that you of course will not see if instead of reading you’d prefer to listen to a recording of this post because you’d like to concurrently swipe through profiles on Raya of mildly glamorous people you’ll never meet, because they live two time zones away.

“I met my spouse on Raya,” said no one ever. “I’m deleting Raya,” says everyone always. “I canceled my Raya account,” did no one since the app launched in 2015. Given the fact that only twelve people have ever had more than a first date on Raya, it’s natural to wonder why the app loses members only when their cryptocurrency goes to zero, their assets are seized by a government, they are imprisoned, or all three. It’s also natural for Raya members to ask themselves if now - following a romantic exclusivity agreement after summering together in Europe, a marriage proposal, or the birth of a grandchild - is finally the time to cancel Raya.  

For those of you who aren’t conventionally attractive or were married before 1971, Raya is a telephone-based application that through manufactured exclusivity lures conventionally attractive people with an inflated sense of their romantic marketability into applying for an up to $400 a year membership, which - once accepted by an algorithm that measures Instagram follower count and cheekbone height - allows members to look at preening photographs of other conventionally attractive members who are at least 2,500 miles away.

Raya profiles have a rigidly consistent vibe (call it a Polo & Pan show at Snow Lodge sponsored by a secretive European private equity firm) and strict photography requirements. 

Female members are required to feature the following photos:

1. Grinning at the base of Ajax (which was too haaaaard) in Aspen wearing the black or white Bogner ski onesie that their ex, who develops strip malls in Arizona, purchased for them in 2019

2. Prone on a chaise lounge at Soho Beach House wearing a Loewe bikini with gold hardware, tastefully concealed by a vertically striped beach towel and the hand of a dude who is cropped out of the photo

3. Brandishing a glass of pinot bianco in a KHAITE dress at a wedding in Tuscany during the height of the pandemic

4. Posed in front of a stately house with a stately older man whom she calls “Daddy,” who is probably but not definitely her father, who continues to pay her $11,000 a month rent in the West Village, West Hollywood, Pac Heights, or South Ken

5. A croissant, french fries, a pink neon sign in a dive bar in Europe, or a Dachshund 

Women’s Raya profile bios are either three emojis or several paragraphs of text. Women with emoji-based profile bios will either never respond to messages from men after matching, or they will respond after one year without acknowledging any passage of time as if this is a totally normal thing to do. Women with long text-based bios will respond to messages immediately, and men will not respond to these replies ever and will continue to send messages to women who do not respond until they are blocked.

Male members are required to feature photos that showcase various states of athletic or financial achievement, and photos that combine both athletic and financial achievement are optimal:

1. Hauling in an extremely large fish (shirtless) on an extremely expensive fishing boat off the coast of Cabo

2. Shredding powder (shirtless) on a totally empty piste in Alaska with a helicopter in the background

3. Riding a polo horse in Argentina wearing regulation polo attire (or shirtless)

4. Pouring a glass of champagne (shirtless) from a magnum of Krug at Alemagou Mykonos

5. Presenting at a mahogany podium pointing at an Excel sheet projected on a pop-up canvas screen at an outdoor LP or family office meeting on Nantucket wearing a crisp powder blue shirt with most of the top buttons undone

Men’s Raya profile bios are limited to four words unless they identify as gay. 

In addition to traditional mutual opt-in matching, Raya also offers users the ability to purchase “direct requests,” which allow men to send messages directly to the abandoned account of Emilia Clarke even though she logged onto Raya only once in 2016 before forgetting that it was on her phone, which was then eaten by a dragon in New Zealand. Women are of course also permitted to purchase direct requests, but literally why would they do ever do that.

Raya in the early days was considered a “safe space” exclusively for professional athletes, professional actors, and professional mannequins to connect online before being brokered onto first dates by their agents and lawyers. The app has since loosened its fame requirements to include just about everyone, because business, but being re-accepted after canceling is not guaranteed and very difficult, also because business. 

Despite the value of being able to mention during a conversation in the Hamptons, Miami, or Positano just how far Raya has slid downhill since you were admitted to the app way back in 2017 when it was fire, every Raya user still says “shit” when they see a notification from Amex Platinum or Chase Sapphire that their Raya membership has auto-renewed for another 6 months, because they have been married for 6 years.

This begs the eternal (or biannual) question: when is the right time to delete Raya?

To determine if now is the right time for you to totally, irrevocably, permanently cancel your Raya membership instead of just deleting it from your phone to placate the person you’re currently semi-exclusively dating but will probably break up with in three months, add up the points next each question to which you answer YES, and use the sophisticated decision matrix below it to determine your personalized course of action: 

(Sorryyyyy for the paywall, folks, but I haven’t posted anything just for my paid readers in a while, and I’d like to tip my hat to them since they’ve thrown their hard-earned dollars into it)

1. Are you in a stable, satisfying, monogamous relationship? +1

2. Do you have court-admissible written, photographic, and videographic evidence documented by both a licensed therapist and a not particularly licensed private investigator that your partner also considers themselves in a stable, satisfying, monogamous relationship with only you? +1

3. Do you enjoy looking at mostly naked women in Lithuania who have undergone a cat eye lift (canthoplasty) and feature on their profile both their Instagram and Venmo usernames? -1

4. Do you enjoy looking at your credit card statements? +1 

5. Is there a chance that at any point in your life you will no longer be in a relationship or will wish to supplement your relationship with someone who will definitely sue you after 8 chaotic months of clandestine sex at 4-star hotels in the financial district of whatever city you live in? -1

6. Are you really, actually on Raya “just for friends”? -1

If you scored 3 points, you should cancel your Raya membership and move to Vermont.

If you scored less than 3 points, you should continue paying Raya’s membership fee, which - like your Soho House membership - you should consider an Ego Tax: a recurring fee that you will pay for all of eternity because you fear losing social status and require infinite optionality. Enjoy your Raya membership, have fun sending messages into the photoshopped ether, and good luck explaining that Raya notification that will pop up on your phone when it’s sitting in front of your spouse on your in-law’s kitchen counter on Thanksgiving.