Why you get no matches with digital nomads

This post was authored by Andrew who does permanent US phone numbers for digital nomads.

So, you are living a bit of the digital nomad life, maybe traveling occasionally and returning to a home base between travels. You work remotely, maybe for a tech company.

You meet beautiful local girls / hot local guys, and of course, they’re enamored with you. The dates are fun and exciting for you. You’re strange and exciting for them. Which is fun for a while, but then you have to leave again. And while it’s bittersweet, you realize you’re not as crushed about it as you expected. Because you’re longing for someone who has ambitions like yours, maybe someone with some shared culture and upbringing. Maybe someone who also works remotely. But it’s hard to meet and date another digital nomad.

So how do you get more matches with other digital nomads?

Small fish, big pond

Here’s a bucket of cold water for you, straight from a big pond. You might feel that you’re a pretty great catch for someone. You’re traveling whenever you want, earning in a strong currency and spending it in local currency, living like a king / queen for pennies.

But actually, the bar has been raised on you. You’re no longer a big fish in the small pond of your home country / town.

So you earn in USD and can afford fancy restaurants for dates? So can most of the other digital nomads.

So you’re twenty-something, adventurous and fit? So are most digital nomads.

So you work remotely for a tech company? Ok, so does every other digital nomad. 

So you post great snaps of your travels on social media / blog? Yes, many other digital nomads do too.

You’re now competing with hot, relatively wealthy people with fascinating lives and stories. It’s tough!

Growth

They say that the only universally applicable relationship advice is to improve yourself.

To stand out from other people, you need to do things that other people can’t, or won’t do. Growth is often difficult.

Many people are fit. Very few guys undertake the grueling journey needed to get 6 pack abs, let alone while on holiday.

Many people are working remotely. Very few people that you meet actually run their own business remotely.

What is stopping you from doing all of the above? Perhaps it’s because it’s scary and hard. But for many, it’s frankly just a matter of time and money.

You want to buy some nicer clothes and have time to get your teeth whitened on a random Tuesday afternoon? Time freedom and more money is what you need.

You are considering getting a personal trainer and start going to the gym every second day? This takes time and money that most people don’t have or don’t spend.

Glued to Zoom meetings for your remote job, instead of going on an impromptu date? Escape that job and become time-free, as well as location-independent.

Both time and money problems are largely solved by starting your own business.

Location free, time free, financially free

I submit that you need to start your own business, to have the time freedom and the financial freedom to improve yourself, and to stand out. It’s incredibly difficult to start a business, and there are many obstacles in the way to leveling up from remote employee to remote business owner.

One obstacle I encounter, every single time I start a new business:

• I get paid in USD
• I have US customers
• I need US bank accounts, a US PayPal, etc. 
• But I’m not in the US. I’m traveling.

I don’t have a US number, and I can’t keep one while I’m traveling. (US phone companies cancel your US number if you’re overseas for too long). And virtual phone numbers don’t work for this purpose. You can’t risk losing access to your bank account and other accounts.

So to scratch my own itch, I set up a phone with a US number in the US.

Every time an SMS code arrives from the bank or from Gmail, on the phone in the US, it instantly forwards the code to me (e.g. in Bali) in an email.

It worked great, and soon, I started to let other digital nomads rent a permanent US phone number too. Now I have a whole bank of phones in a datacenter in the US. The phones mostly run themselves, and I have no Zoom meetings. I started an online business, and it’s truly helping people.

Which, I should add, is an interesting thing to talk about when on a first date with a cool and interesting digital nomad.

Andrew is traveling and running several online businesses. He founded hardlinephone.com to help digital nomads finally get and keep a real US number, to hang onto all their online accounts while traveling.