How I ended up dating my neighbour (by mistake)
A Berlin love story by Rez Rahman
Hello!
As I said last week, you’ll probably notice more love and relationships, and less sex, this month, from guest writers whose stories I think you’ll love reading as I take time to focus on the importance of this month and my faith.
This week, I handover to the inimitable .
Born and raised in East London with Bangladeshi roots, Rez is a writer, chef, and creative entrepreneur exploring the connections between food, love, and identity.
With over a decade in the culinary and hospitality industries, Rez has worked on cooking shows in the UK, managed her own hostel in Vietnam, and spent years as a private chef and recipe developer in Australia. Today, she runs Roti Mami, a Bengali pop-up inspired by her passion for heritage, comfort food and the stories that live within our kitchens.
Alongside her culinary endeavours, Rez writes about the intersections of food, love and travel on her Substack, Rezervations. I’ve featured some of her writing before because I’m obsessed with lover girls! It does something to me — maybe it’s a shot of optimism, a shared understanding of girlhood or finding words for my experiences in another’s writings:
What’s your Substack about?
My work is about travel, food, and love but not in the conventional "five places to visit" kind of way. It’s about the people I meet, the fleeting connections and the unexpected moments that shape an experience. It’s about how places make me feel, the micro-obsessions I develop along the way and the quirky, often serendipitous things I learn or get up to on these journeys. My writing isn’t just about destinations, it’s born out of my curiosities.
Why did you start writing about love and relationships?
Because I’m a lover girl — I love love. Somehow, I always find myself in the kind of unreal, cinematic holiday romances that occasionally spill over into my real life. These experiences have taught me more than I could have imagined, gifting me some of the most unforgettable moments, whether it’s traipsing around Hong Kong for the eighth time, extending a three-week stay in South Korea into three months or meeting a boy in Bangladesh, of all places.
Over to you!
How I Ended Up Dating My Neighbour (By Mistake)
Although I’ve never ticked off the classic Berlin dating bingo — lounging on Tempelhofer Feld with a picnic, pretending to be a literary girl whilst browsing Shakespeare & Sons on a coffee date, power-walking an unnecessary 20k steps through Boxhagener Platz flea market, or grabbing Späti beers — I still feel like I’ve earned my stripes in this city’s chaotic dating scene. I mean, who hasn’t?
So let’s talk about the time almost four years ago when I’d recently moved to Berlin and I accidentally started dating my neighbour.
It all started when a new friend invited me to a party. She promised an early start (thank God, I hate staying out late) and reassured me that the music lineup was hip-hop, R&B, and Afrobeats — basically, anything but techno. Sold.
The party itself? Definitely on the fancier side for Berlin. Light installations, free Jägermeister, massive screens — it had budget. The energy was infectious and everyone was dancing like they’d just discovered their bodies for the first time. That’s when I spotted him.
Right in the centre of the dance floor, in his own world, was this guy absolutely going for it like a crossover between a Bollywood dance scene and a David Attenborough wildlife mating ritual: flailing arms, dramatic twirls, and full commitment. This was peak Berlin: people just letting loose, zero shame, fully embracing the moment. It reminded me of my own solo interpretive dance sessions at home, except here was this guy, doing it in public, owning it. I was obsessed.
So, naturally, I joined in.
I started mirroring his moves — throwing my shoulders around like we were in the "Thriller" music video, twerking, spanking the air. It was pure chaos and my stomach hurt from laughing so much. He was flamboyant, sharply dressed, radiating old-Hollywood beauty. He was gorgeous. When we finally spoke, his Saudi accent completely took me by surprise. He kept sprinkling ‘habibte’ into our conversation like confetti. We had this weird, unspoken synergy — mirrored moves, locked in eye contact, cracking up constantly. He reminded me of my best queer friends back home. He was too fun and too beautiful to be straight and so I felt totally at ease with him.
At the end of the night we exchanged numbers. He said, “We should hang out again,” and I was thrilled. I was making new friends in Berlin, meeting cool people —it felt like everything was falling into place.
A week later, he invited me out to a cocktail bar. I was excited to see him again. Over drinks, I was my usual goofy self making ridiculous jokes, pulling silly faces and just vibing. Then, out of nowhere, he said, “This has been such a nice date.”
…A date?
I thought we were just two new friends hanging out. If this had been a date, I would’ve been way more reserved. When I like someone, I hold back a little. But with him? I was in full unfiltered mode: no flirting, no strategic pauses, just vibes. But I didn’t want to make things weird, so I just…went along with it?
As we wrapped up the night, he asked me where I lived. I told him I lived nearby, and he said, “Yeah, me too!” I told him I lived on Mainzer, and he practically shouted, “Oh my god, I live on Mainzer too!”
At this point, I was dying.
I suggested, “Ok, on the count of three, let’s say our building number.” We counted down. Three, two, one…“Sixteen!”
We both lost it.
We screamed like maniacs in this very quiet, very German cocktail bar where everyone else was politely sipping their drinks. We could not stop laughing. How was this even happening?
As we walked back to our building together, he said, “You open the door.” I did, and when the door clicked open, he gasped, “I can’t believe this. We’re actually neighbours.”
Turns out, he lived in the front house, and I lived in the back house. We were separated by a tiny courtyard. From my staircase, I could literally see into his kitchen window. Every day, coming or going, I’d spot him cooking, moving around. It was like some surreal sitcom subplot.
Before I knew it, I was accidentally dating my neighbour. He started leaving cute little gifts outside my door, and we’d wave at each other through our windows. It was bizarre, hilarious and fun all at once. One minute I was dancing at a party and, the next, I was in my own Wes Anderson rom-com.
It didn’t last long. But, while it did, it was one of those ridiculous, ‘only in Berlin’ moments. What a start to my Berlin love life!
Maybe not love, exactly.
But certainly, a brilliantly serendipitous adventure.
Despite the fun, my Berlin dating goal remains to be: I just want to find something serious.
Which, to be fair, sounds contradictory. I’m also deeply demisexual. There’s no moment of ‘Wow, I want you’ for me — only a long, slow unfolding of emotions, if they ever arrive at all. It’s only when I deeply connect with someone, when I understand them in a way that goes beyond surface-level chemistry, that something shifts for me. And, honestly? That makes dating in Berlin even more complicated for me.
Because, let’s be real, the city thrives on casual chaos. It’s a city where people collect lovers like they’re collecting Pokémon. It’s a place where a love story starts at 3am on a Saturday in a smoky basement club and evaporates into ghosting before Monday morning. Where a situationship lasts as long as that meme some boy once sent me. Some encounters are flops, some are unforgettably funny, but most end in an anticlimactic, ‘Oh, look — Tom’s back in my DMs.’
But somehow, in this city of nearly four million people, I still managed to accidentally date my neighbour — that alone feels like a sign that anything is possible for me here.
I always leave a track at the end of my writing and today’s song I’d like to leave you with is You've Been My Girl by Knox White.
Love,
Rez x
Huge thank you to ! Don’t forget to subscribe to her newsletter . You can find her on IG here.
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