Taking your friend on a first date with a guy

Zoya Naumov and Gabriel's first date was one Christmas Day at a bar in Madrid's Lavapiés neighborhood. They met through an app, an increasingly common story, although their first encounter was unconventional. As soon as they started, Zoya got up to go to the bathroom and ran into a good friend, with whom they'd only been at that bar for a week. "It turns out she was also on a first date, and we'd chosen the same bar!" explains Naumov.

The friend thought it was hilarious and suggested they all sit together and have a double date. Naumov hesitated: she didn't know if he'd be up for it; they'd only exchanged a few words. In the end, she didn't have time to ask him: "While I was telling Gabriel about the situation, my friend came over with her date and sat with us," the athlete recalls. What could have been a somewhat awkward situation turned into a "more natural and relaxed" encounter. "On a one-on-one date, you usually bring out your best side, but in this situation, we forgot about that a bit and were just natural and relaxed."

The relaxed atmosphere suited Naumov well because his first thought when he saw Gabriel was: "Oh, shit." "I really liked him. I was in a pretty stable place in my life and I didn't want any emotional earthquakes. Falling in love is an emotional earthquake, but that's what happened: we fell in love." Naumov, who stopped looking to Disney a long time ago, knew that falling in love wasn't the end of the story, but the beginning. "We started building the relationship that best suited each of our needs, and to get help, we went to therapy. There were those who didn't understand. "If it takes so much therapy in the beginning, what's the point?" they would tell us. The reality is that many couples go to therapy when the relationship is already quite worn out; for us, it was quite worn out,"

The athlete and psychologist has long since built relationships based on what makes her happy. She practices non-monogamy, but needs labels less and less. "I'd always thought that once I met someone, I'd be there for life. I still think that, but that doesn't mean I can't add or meet new people. I'm intense and I live life and love to the fullest."