Believe it or not, dating apps in Colombia have become a contentious subject.

And for good reason.

Dating apps have been connected to some genuinely ugly situations involving foreigners: drugging, robbery and, in some cases, death. Scopolamine gets most of the headlines, but it isn’t the only substance used.

This isn’t just expat paranoia anymore. The U.S. State Department specifically warns travelers in Colombia that criminals use dating apps to lure victims and advises people to meet in public places, tell friends where they are going and never leave food or drinks unattended.

That doesn’t mean nobody should date.

It means you need to use your head.

Over the years, there are two dating apps that have worked particularly well for me in Colombia and, more recently, Mexico.

One is about as mainstream as you can get.

The other definitely is not.

Facebook Dating

First: Facebook Dating.

It’s pretty standard. You get the same basic swipe-left/swipe-right experience we have all come to expect from dating apps.

And I have actually met friends and boyfriends through it.

One of the best dating experiences I had during my years in Colombia started there.

I always felt a little more comfortable using Facebook Dating than something like Plenty of Fish or Tinder because Facebook itself was already such a big part of everyday life. People used it for Marketplace, community groups, events, family photos and everything else.

That does not mean someone is safe simply because they are on Facebook.

But psychologically, I felt like I had more context.

A completely empty presence, a brand-new-looking profile, inconsistent information or a story that didn’t add up gave me reasons to slow down.

And slowing down is important.

I also found that, for whatever reason, the people I met through Facebook tended to feel a little less anonymous than people I met through some of the traditional dating apps.

Again, that is my experience.

It is not a security guarantee.

My rules for meeting someone from an app

• Always meet somewhere public the first time. Know how you are getting there and, more importantly, how you are getting yourself home.
• Don’t immediately hand over your address, financial situation or detailed information about your family. You are meeting a stranger, not filling out a census form.
• Look for consistency. Age, location, photos, conversation and the basic story of who this person claims to be should make sense.
• Be especially cautious with extremely new or empty profiles. Stories can get creative when somebody wants something from you.
• Don’t accept an already-open drink from somebody you just met. Don’t leave your food or drink unattended either.
• And please, for the love of God, don’t bring somebody you just met online back to your hotel or apartment because the first two hours went well.

I have heard that last story too many times.

Someone seems sweet.

The date goes well.

They keep drinking.

They go back to the foreigner’s lodging.

And sometime later the person wakes up—if they’re lucky—with their phone, wallet, laptop and everything else gone.

A reader once stopped me in a shopping mall in Colombia and told me almost exactly that story after recognizing me from this site.

That stuck with me.

So I’m going to say it again:

Get to know people first.

There can also be a very transactional side to online dating in Colombia.

Men have told me repeatedly about women who match with them and almost immediately offer to sell photos, videos or sexual content. Others encounter people openly looking for financial arrangements rather than relationships.

That doesn’t make everyone on the apps dishonest.

It means you need to understand the environment you’re dating in.

I also made genuine friends through Facebook Dating—people I still talk to years later.

So I’m not going to discount it.

Then I Found Feeld

The other app is the one I now prefer almost exclusively:

Feeld.

And this is where Open Minded Traveler starts wandering outside the vanilla dating lane.

Feeld describes itself as an app for people who are open to exploring relationships and connection in different ways.

That can mean dating.

It can mean monogamy.

It can also mean ENM, polyamory, kink, BDSM, friends with benefits, couples, casual connections or simply admitting that you have no idea exactly what you want yet.

Feeld currently lets people identify dozens of desires and relationship interests, including BDSM, ENM, friendship and more traditional one-on-one relationships.

You do not have to be kinky to use Feeld.

You do, however, need to be capable of existing around people who might be.

Swingers are there.

Poly people are there.

Open marriages are there.

Single people are there.

People looking for monogamy are there too.

What I like is that there seems to be much less need to pretend everybody wants the same thing.

I Prefer the Honesty of these Dating apps in Colombia

I went on a date with a guy who asked me directly what my relationship with ENM was and why.

That is not a normal first-date question on most dating apps.

But I liked it.

My answer was basically this:

I don’t want to define myself—or everybody I meet—according to relationship structures that increasingly don’t seem to reflect the way people actually live.

I would much rather talk to a married man who openly says:

My wife knows. We’re open. Maybe she’ll join us.

than deal with the married guy on the supposedly “vanilla” app who conveniently forgets to mention that his wife and children exist.

And yes.

That happens.

A lot.

Ethical non-monogamy and cheating are not the same thing.

The entire point of the “ethical” part is that the people involved know what the arrangement is. Even Feeld makes that distinction explicitly in its explanation of ENM.

Does that mean everybody on Feeld is honest?

Of course not.

It is still the internet.

People are still people.

But I like starting from a place where somebody can simply say what they are looking for without spending three weeks pretending they want something else.

You Don’t Have to Pick a Box

This one ultimately comes down to preference.

Maybe you want a simple heterosexual, monogamous relationship.

Great.

Maybe you want a friend with benefits.

Also fine.

Maybe you and your partner want to meet somebody together.

Maybe you’re curious about kink.

Maybe you’re poly.

Maybe you have absolutely no idea what you are anymore and you would simply like the freedom to figure it out.

Welcome to the club.

No judgment here.

And that brings me back around to why I changed Open Minded Traveler in the first place.

I’m not trying to rewrite the book on relationships.

I’m questioning whether we still have to follow a book that was written for a world many of us no longer live in.

Travel did that to me in a lot of ways.

Living abroad did it even more.

You meet people who grew up with completely different assumptions about sex, relationships, marriage, fidelity, family and freedom.

Eventually you start examining your own.

Some ideas survive the examination.

Others don’t.

So if you’re perfectly happy with a traditional relationship, carry on.

If you’re starting to question everything you thought you knew before?

Keep reading.