Can we take a moment to talk about an article in which people living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, host to the city’s most egregiously expensive dinner-and-a-movie dates, throw a tantrum because “Internet people” have the audacity to meet up in their neighborhood?
No, seriously: DNAinfo reported on what sounds like a really productive community board meeting, the topic a 72nd Street wine bar and café that had an outdoor seating section approved in August and now wants, obviously, to serve alcohol there—which would, according to locals, expose innocent children to the unseemly world of OkCupid.
Resident Al Salsano griped that the wine bar has a limited food menu and attracts people who use it as a place for dates after meeting online.
“I have seen people say, ‘I met you on the Internet,’ and you’re putting that on the sidewalk?” he said incredulously. “I don’t want children walking near ‘Internet people’ meeting.”
When a Community Board 7 member asked if 16 people drinking wine outside a restaurant always gave rise to Sodom-like scenes of depravity, moreover, local Chris Horwitz “retorted that he wouldn’t know because, ‘I don’t go out to meet people I found on the Internet.’”
Couple things here: first, no one has ever said “I met you on the Internet,” because the person you’d be saying that to would already know. Second, the Internet is not a BDSM dungeon (or not for the most part, anyway). Third of all, everyone is on the Internet, especially your children. Right now, your kids are looking at something online that’s worse than a million date-friendly wine bars put together! If you ask nicely, maybe they’ll even show you.
Anyway, enjoy the fading stigma of making friends online and getting to know them IRL while you can. We have a feeling that, in the not-too-distant future, the real taboo will be approaching a total stranger at a darkened lounge and asking if you can buy them a drink.
H/T DNAinfo | Photo by Mike Norton/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)