‘I loved her honesty and confidence’
The Dater
Ralph (a.k.a. Raffaela Weyman) is a Juno-nominated singer-songwriter who has toured across North America, Europe and the U.K., and amassed more than 45 million streams on Spotify. She runs her own label, Rich Man Records, and is working on a new EP. She just released a music video for her new song “How Do You Measure Love,” which she produced, edited and codirected with her brother Teo.
The Dates
“I’ve dated a lot in my life — I’ve never been a super-monogamous person and I love meeting new people, so dating has always been fun to me. I probably have a dating memory attached to 60 per cent of Toronto’s bar and restaurant landscape, since I’m born and raised in Toronto. I will say that I regret nothing, because every date experience helped me learn about myself and I now have one million entertaining dating stories I can bust out at a dinner party.
In the past, I’ve loved a park date because you can bring your own snacks and drinks and save some money; I like Christie Pits or Bickford. You can also leave whenever, which is comforting. I remember going on a first date where they did a park picnic layout at Trinity Bellwoods, complete with gluten-free crackers and my favourite cheeses and wine. There was so much thought put into it.
I think there’s this groupie trope where people think that after our set on tour, we have tons of random hot fans pouring into the green room and there’s big, sexy afterparties. In my experience as a musician, this doesn’t happen: we have to load out our gear ourselves at midnight, drop it at the hotel and then maybe we get dinner at 1 a.m., maybe a drink. But there’s rarely any time to meet strangers to hook up with, and often you’re sharing a room. When I’m dating someone and they get stressed about me touring I’m like, LOL, you’ve seen ‘Almost Famous’ too many times.
Being a famous musician can make dating harder, especially on apps. I get super weird about people wanting to date me because of who I am or what I do; I don’t want to be Ralph on a date or in a relationship. When I downloaded Hinge, I had a couple people message me ‘OMG, you’re Ralph!’ So I made a very creepy, nuanced profile where I posted a lot of pics of my back and of my baby photos. My girlfriend said she thought she was for sure getting catfished when we first started talking.
I met her like a week after I downloaded the app. I think your picture selections say a lot about you, and I wasn’t finding myself drawn to that many people until I saw this profile where the girl was not only hot but also had cool style and a sense of humour. I remember her second picture was of a burrata cheese being sliced and I was like OK, she doesn’t take herself too seriously and I love that.
We talked on the app for about five days then transitioned to Instagram, where we would just send five-minute voice messages to each other about our grandparents, songs we were listening to, our pets, our exes. We talked constantly and about everything. I remember thinking her voice was so incredibly sexy and soothing, I was convinced she was an ASMR podcaster.
When we finally met up at Lucky Shrike, we seamlessly talked for four hours. I remember there were moments where my hands were really close to her arm and I was trying to gather the courage to touch her. I also remember we were the only women in the entire bar, so we were conscious of that, which was kinda annoying. When we left, I walked her to her bike and we waited for my Uber. We hugged goodbye and I immediately texted my group chat ‘oh no, we hugged — is that bad?’ But seconds later, she texted me saying ‘I wanted to kiss you so bad, but there were a bunch of guys outside the bar and I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing our first kiss,’ which I totally understood and made me feel so assured. I loved her honesty and confidence; that felt really refreshing to me.
I made a Spotify playlist for my girlfriend after about two weeks of talking; she loves music a lot and we have similar taste so I wanted to show her some of my absolute favourite songs. I had actually never done that for anyone else. Going out in Toronto, we love Seoul Shakers; the food is so good and the vibe is perfect. We also randomly love Fanny Chadwick’s for a drink, since it’s close to home and they have gorgeous orangey lighting that screams sexy date night.
I feel very comfortable imagining a future with my partner and talking about it with her, which is a first for me. We’ve talked about what our wedding would look like — neither of us are big wedding people in the traditional sense, but we like the idea of a party at my family property up north with outfit changes and live music — and kid names. We want to go to Japan together, but until then we’re trying to go to Mexico for a vacation this summer. We’ve travelled together quite a bit and it’s so easy. This is so cheesy, but being with her always gives me a sense of ‘I’m home and I’m safe’ so travelling anywhere is always a good time. She also understands my allergy to packing light, so she’ll sacrifice space in her bag for my heaviest pieces: that’s true love.”