…because leaving the house is overrated. That’s the topic of this week’s Chron/Gate column, Web 2.0 Dating Games, where I talk about what sites people are using (and a bit about how they’re using them) to cruise. Image: the screencap the Gate was too nervous to run with the piece, which is also my favoritest Craigslist ad ever, and is tempting a response even as I write this. Snip:
And so it goes around the bay: The gays think it’s easy for lesbians, the lesbians think it’s easier if you’re gay … and the straight people think it’s easier if you’re gay. Granted, these common assumptions leave out a couple of other important letters in our alphabet soup of sexual diversity. Dating in the Bay Area may not be a happy hunting expedition for all, yet one thing’s for certain: The communities have community (from the Lexington to Manhunt.net), and the nerds have — the Internet. And our Web 2.0 conferences. Happy hunting, and don’t get stuck at home Twittering yourself on Friday night. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There isn’t. End of discussion. OK?
But wait, you say, don’t you frustrated tech geeks have SOMA and South Park and the Marina — I mean, the Mission — on weekends? Or how about those deliciously retro launch mixers, where you congregate and slip each other Moo cards and quaff too much dot-com startup-sponsored booze, mewling belligerently about how sunlight burns your pale skin?
Sure, if your idea of a hookup involves tracking the cosmo-spilled trail of many a girl who thinks “dress over pants” doesn’t make her look like a Bed Bath & Beyond’s Bed-in-a-Bag-wearing Barbie Facebook Edition. And put down my iBook to sniff out the day-old cigar and single-malt scent of startup jocks rocking the pleated Dockers? Sorry — they may or may not have the new Helio Heat, but their home page is MySpace, and I’ll bet their approach is one long, unwanted page load. No, there exists a Second Life because most of us ran scared from the first one long ago, thanks. We live on the Internet for a reason. And isn’t the purpose of technology to push us farther apart so we can get closer together, online?*
Link.
* I credit qDot for this last line.
