Dating in Bogota: Apps, Chisme, Colágeno (oh my…)

Seriously, each time I come back to this blog, I hardly recognise it. Not just because the back-end of WordPress has changed so much, but also because my last posts just seem like they’re from another era. Which they were. Previous chapters in my life.

I had just turned 29 when I started this blog in 2013. Now I’m 40. One of the curious things about getting older is that I now see different periods in my life as like chapters of a book. A chapter closed – another began.

I wrote my last post here around the end of the last chapter in mid 2023. It was marked by the end of the 11-year relationship that brought me to Colombia in the first place (that I was at the beginning of when I started this blog). 

Now in 2025, I’m well into the next chapter.

Dating again in Colombia in the 2020s

How did it begin? Predictably with an exploration of the dating apps that didn’t exist when I began my last relationship. I wrote off Tinder pretty fast. All the dates I ended up going on were from Bumble. 

There were some good ones. 

And there were some :/ ones.

The tattooed dentist

Take the ripped, tattooed dentist who evidently thought he was God’s gift to humankind. I didn’t even meet him in the end, because he pulled the old “Voy llegando” (I’m just arriving) line three hours after the time we were supposed to meet… and when I asked him to share his location, he hadn’t even left his place yet. Like dude… at least try not to be the subject of a Colombian meme on the first date?

He couldn’t believe it when I told him at 11pm not to bother coming. 

A week later he messaged asking for another chance: “Give me another chance,” he said. “Sé que te gustaré. Mucho.” (I know you’ll like me. A lot)

*Blocked*

The Catfish

Then there was the catfish. The guy who was nice enough in the pre-date chat, whose photos were interestingly filtered but not so much that it rang alarm bells. In hindsight, I also think I shared too much about myself before the date. 

Anyway, we met, and I sort of recognised him… but for a couple of seconds I did wonder if this was his scruffier, less cute younger brother. I mean, I’m fine with casual dress, but if you’ve got a date and you’ve been on a motorbike working the whole day, I feel like you might smarten up with a different jacket and a comb through your hair… or something. It also threw me a bit that he didn’t look that much like the photos I’d seen of him.

That date was pretty awkward. I’m good at keeping a conversation going, but I was grateful that Mesa Salvaje (the café we’d met at in Chapinero) was only open for another hour after we arrived. After the date, I followed up with a ‘thank you for the date, it was nice to meet you but I didn’t really feel a spark”. He was also 10 years younger (like the dentist), which may have been an issue.

In Colombia, they call significantly younger guys “colágenos” (collagen), which I first learned about from social media once the algorithms realised I was dating again. ‘Colágenos’, because they keep you feeling young.

Top Gun

I think my favorite colágeno from 2023, whom I had a few dates with, was the Colombian airforce pilot. We’ll call him Top Gun. 

Turns out he was a love-bomber. You know. Saying all the things a woman wants to hear from a gorgeous younger airforce pilot whose Bumble profile pic was him grinning inside his helicopter.

Soon after we matched, I made it clear to Top Gun that I was just out of a long-term relationship and wasn’t looking for anything serious. He was fine with that (imagine!). 

Turns out he was only in Bogota for a few months studying French. His base was in Melgar (about 2-3 hours from Bogota) and normally he’s flying around the country chasing coca cultivators or assisting mountain rescues. 

Yeh. So that was a nice, brief rebound fling that was fun and also pretty frustrating. Differences in communication styles.

He zombied me a few times (for those of you who don’t know, that’s when he kind of disappears for days or a week with zero communication and then reappears with a nice message as if nothing happened. (I thought I’d been ‘ghosted’ a couple of times, but it turned out I was only ‘zombied’…oh the joys of dating in the 2020s). 

Anyway, it made me realise the things that are important to me when it comes to communication and transparency in dating. 

And it got me over the hump between the 11-year relationship and whatever was to come next, which I was grateful for.

“So what came next?” you must be wondering. Well, let’s just say my gym membership turned out to be excellent value for money 😎

Latin Magic Mike

I ditched the dating apps and (like any good Brit) began my next conquest. And conquer I did. I’ve been seeing one of the rumba class teachers from my gym for the last year or so. 

Originally from Valledupar, he’s a combination of sexy and serious, and hilarious and clownish in private, once I got to know him better.

As well as leading classes at the gym, he’s also an entertainer, performer, choreographer, and runs his own dance academy in the north of Bogota. He does animación (like MC’ing) for events (weddings, birthdays, quinceañeras), too. 

A few months ago, I showed him a clip from Magic Mike and told him he could put together a similar show and become the ‘Latin Magic Mike’. I also wouldn’t hate the idea of being Latin Magic Mike’s girlfriend at the age of 40 😎 I’ll let you know how that goes!

Anyway, that’s a bit of dating news and some of the all-essential chisme (gossip). I didn’t initially intend for this to be a kiss-and-tell kinda blog post, but it has been a fun theme of the current life-chapter I’m in, here in Bogota!

Have you had any funny, frustrating, or memorable dating experiences in Colombia? Do feel free to spill the tea in the comments!