Three fields that do three different jobs
Where you live, where you are from, and where you are open to meeting are not the same question, and collapsing them into one location field is what breaks long-distance dating on most apps. Keeping them separate is what makes a corridor workable: you can be in Toronto, from Lagos, and open to meeting in London, and all three of those facts can be true on your profile without any of them being a lie.
- Where you live — your actual city, shown to other members as a city and never as coordinates
- Where you are from — context that matters to a great many people and is invisible on most apps
- Where you are open to meeting — one or several places, set by you
Verification does more work at a distance
The further apart two people are, the longer a fiction can survive. RealMe is mandatory before anyone can message you — government ID, liveness selfie and verification video, checked together — which collapses the window in which someone can be a different person entirely. It is a check about identity, not a character reference, and at distance that distinction is worth keeping clear in your own mind.
The practical questions, early
Long-distance works or fails on logistics rather than on feeling: how often you will actually see each other, who travels, who would eventually move, what the visa position is, and how long the distance phase is expected to last. These are better asked in month one than in year two. The guide on dating someone in another city covers them in the order they actually come up.
What never to do at distance
Do not send money to someone you have not met in person. This is the single rule that would prevent most of the harm in long-distance dating, and distance is precisely the condition every variation of the script depends on. The guide on recognising romance scam patterns sets out the patterns, with sources, and what to do if money has already gone.