Blog Date

A friend of mine is moving to a new city. As part of his moving plans he did what any savvy person should do: look for bloggers in this new city.

There’s lots to learn from people who write about a place daily, or even from people who primarily write on other topics but whose accounts are informed by where they live. Most cities have an all-encompassing group blog or two, some arts and entertainment blogs, food blogs, and so forth. Essentially, all the sections of a well-rounded local newspaper can be found in weblogs, but reported on a more personal and informal level, making them a great compliment to more traditional sources of information on civic life. Then there are the aforementioned individual bloggers.

My friend found a blog written by a young lady who shared many of his tastes and interests. On a whim, he asked her out to dinner when he arrives in the city. She enthusiastically agreed.

As someone who’s frequently thinking about ways we can better connect with others in an age of constricting, tick-the-boxes, multiple choice online dating, I was captivated by this annecdote. What better way to get to know someone than through their blog?

Blog-like journals are already a feature of a number of social networking sites, but they seem like an afterthought. The average MySpace “blog” is like a LiveJournal distilled to its most shallow and reprehensible. The blog features on explicitly dating-centric sites like The Onion Personals go practically unused.

The dating world doesn’t need another personals site embracing blogs. Rather, “blog dates” like the one my friend is looking forward to should become commonplace. Right now, asking out a blogger you admire is sort of a stalkerish thing to do, but that’s largely because there’s no social protocol or precedent for it. Hopefully that will change.

In my eyes, telling a blogger “hey, I love what you write every day, and you look kinda cute in that 200×100 pixel photo on your site” seems a lot less shallow than picking up a random attractive stranger at a bar. A blog date starts from mutual intellectual respect, and that’s a healthy thing.

Go forth, then, and mack. The only thing you have to lose are your TrackBacks.