There’s a New Dating App for Slack called Feeld

Slack, a popular messaging app used in workplaces to schedule meetings and chat with your co-workers, has entered into new territory. Now, you can date your co-workers over Slack, too.

Dating app Feeld announced its integration onto the Slack platform late April. It works like this: when you download the Feeld app in Slack, you can let the app know who of your colleagues you’re interested in. If Feeld notices your co-worker has admitted to being attracted to you, too, it will let both of you know and you can take it from there (and start your flirtatious messaging over Slack). If your co-worker doesn’t return the affection, he’s never alerted to your interest.

So essentially, you can get confirmation of your crush without him or her knowing.

Mashable and other media outlets have pointed out the obvious challenge with this kind of app. Depending on the company’s HR guidelines for workplace romances, there might be some transgressions or clandestine relationships. Mixing work with romance doesn’t usually go well, either. How many people felt they had to leave their jobs because a workplace relationship went south?

Also, it might be unnerving to learn the person you’ve been secretly crushing on for months isn’t all that interested. And still, you have to work with them.

Feeld seems to address potential problems by providing a “Manifesto” or guidelines on its website. For instance, it does spell out the importance of consent, especially when it comes to workplace romance:

“Nothing should happen without a talk and agreement about consent. Trusting that someone understands what you are comfortable with, the limits to your comfort, and that they won't violate those limits without your agreement — and vice-versa — is essential to the growth of intimacy, authenticity, mutual respect and above all, safety.”

There is the issue of discrimination based on favors, too (as we’ve seen with the firing of talk show host Bill O’Reilly for sexually harassing his workplace colleagues). The website states that: “Discrimination, intimidation, or marginalisation of any kind have no place in the Feeld community. Preserve the open, honest, respectful attitude in your actions and approaches towards others.”

Feeld is already a provocative dating app, where curious singles and daters hoping to go “incognito” can find matches. Feeld also invites couples to explore sexual or intimate relationships with others in their community, and provides articles relating to BDSM, threesomes, and other types of sexual exploits. Feeld founder Dimo Trifonov says:

Our current mission is to provide a judgment-free discovery platform for your sexuality, whether you're single, in a relationship, or not even looking.

While teaming with Slack makes sense from a dating app growth perspective – a built-in and engaged community, a wide range of users – it also crosses an important boundary in workplace safety. Above all, people should feel safe at their job sites, rather than worrying about sexual advances.

Hopefully, Feeld will be effective in helping people draw clear boundaries, too.