Inflight dating… what next?
it’s that time of the decade when we look back at the past 10 years and compile lists. I thought that it could be a good idea to wrap up the Naughties with a nostalgic look at international relationships.
I was discussing a number of Turnleft iphone apps with Peter Robinett (you should check Coffeeshoppr on your next trip to Amsterdam) when he forwarded a link to Bluenity, the social networking site set up by Air France KLM. According to the disclaimer Bluenity is a community site for travelers, enabling members to communicate at the airport, during the flight and at the destination. Now call me a cynic but I know a hook-up site when I see one and inflight flirting is one hell of a concept considering that WiFi will be on board most aircrafts over the next few years – in fact Turnleft had been entertaining the idea for a while (but restricted to the most Orthodox followers of our radical chic, Dries Van Noten trenchcoat & 4 am Currywurst dianetics)…
In what seems like a distant prehistoric past, foreign brides were ordered by post. So after a good look at Bluenity I gave the concept a serious thumbs up and could only marvel at how far meet (meat?) markets have gone over the past ten years, to the point where an airline feels compelled to launch its own mile-high club and to allow seat 10C to flirt with 19E on the Amsterdam-Sydney (or even better to let them sit together).
Unless you’ve been on the other side of the moon (or married) dating fads cross the Atlantic and the Channel at the speed of light, uniting Paris/London/New York singletons through speed dating, boardgame dating, 7 to 1’s, silent dating, dating dans le noir, lock & key parties and red-amber-green stickers (shag tags really). That was until the Internet decimated all forms of social interaction. Then all conversations shifted to Match.com, Meetic, Gaydar, Asians4Asians or Totally Jewish profiles. Recent revolution came in the form of Grindr which, according to my iphone, signals that based on GPS triangulation [name withdrawn] is 127 meters away and ready to chat. Grindr nickname: the gay sat nav. Bluenity is obviously the next best thing for international romance – the Friendsreunited of the 2010s for the global generation: you can be on your way to a Ny-Lon relationship on Friday night and have a side fling by the time you’ve landed at JFK.
And just when I was about to wrap up this post on a high note, a Turnleft follower is dumped by her Swedish beau. By SMS. 100 characters tops. Just before Christmas (“hello [name withdrawn]. i have had feelings for someone and thought it wasn’t mutual. i was wrong. sorry. take care”). That’s one sms to frame and it strikes me that the paradigm shift in the Naughties wasn’t so much with dating but with the art of dumping. If for the previous generation a break-up over the phone would have been a breach of manners, a landmark moment was reached in the 1990s when a LA actor dumped his French actress girlfriend by fax – saving himself the hassle of a first-class flight to Paris. It’s been downhill since and there’s something almost romantic about Carrie Bradshaw being dumped with a post-it note. Now a phone call or a fax would seem courteous compared to a Facebook message (I’m guilty as charged), a late-night status update (you know who you are) or a misspelt sms.
So back to Air France KLM’s Bluenity, well done. And hello Seat 5A on the AF003 to JFK. You look good and I have just finished Wallpaper*. Free seat next to me. U up 4 121 NSA? Bring drinks. Bluenity status: offline. Twitter: omg seat 5a is fit lol. Facebook message: hi [name withdrawn] i’ve just met someone on the AF003. sorry. take care.
This is such a cool blog. Do these moderns means of communication (that’s really all they are) allow for easier/more relationships-at-a-distance or do they just create the illusion of it being possible/easier? Traveling a tad myself – and having tried the distance thing a few times – I wonder if it’s possible to keep a relationship alive-at-a-distance. In the end, a relationship is mostly consumed through the close contact. Right?
Or is the end-of-year-reflection moment that makes me all weak in the heart and grounded as never before?