Here is a twist to social networking without all that goes with it. Use the internet - but only to a certain point. Then, it's back to good old-fashioned basics of dining and conversation.
"The scene unfolding at the Thai restaurant in Brooklyn was like that of any other casual dinner party. A small group of people sat around a wooden table, passing large dishes of spicy red curry and fried rice, drinking cold beers and swapping war stories about apartment hunting in New York.
But the twist was this: Before about 8 that evening, none of us had met before.
My newfound friends came courtesy of a Chicago start-up business called Grubwithus, an online service with the seemingly modest aim of bringing strangers together to have a meal. The concept is simple enough: People browse through a list of dinners in their cities and buy tickets, usually for around $25. Before the event, they can share a few online tidbits about themselves with their dining partners, a precautionary measure against awkward lulls in conversation and a way to ease fears about meeting up with a bunch of unknowns. For example, Eunice, one of my dining mates, wrote in her profile that she was a young nurse who loved to shop and travel.
But the service has deeper ambitions. It is using contemporary techniques to foster a kind of social networking that predates the dawn of services like Facebook and Twitter: old-fashioned conversation among casual acquaintances, without keyboards and screens."
"The scene unfolding at the Thai restaurant in Brooklyn was like that of any other casual dinner party. A small group of people sat around a wooden table, passing large dishes of spicy red curry and fried rice, drinking cold beers and swapping war stories about apartment hunting in New York.
But the twist was this: Before about 8 that evening, none of us had met before.
My newfound friends came courtesy of a Chicago start-up business called Grubwithus, an online service with the seemingly modest aim of bringing strangers together to have a meal. The concept is simple enough: People browse through a list of dinners in their cities and buy tickets, usually for around $25. Before the event, they can share a few online tidbits about themselves with their dining partners, a precautionary measure against awkward lulls in conversation and a way to ease fears about meeting up with a bunch of unknowns. For example, Eunice, one of my dining mates, wrote in her profile that she was a young nurse who loved to shop and travel.
But the service has deeper ambitions. It is using contemporary techniques to foster a kind of social networking that predates the dawn of services like Facebook and Twitter: old-fashioned conversation among casual acquaintances, without keyboards and screens."
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