A reader writes:
I have trouble taking your New York correspondent's problem with Grindr seriously: "I've been to gay bars where several hot guys will be standing next to each other at the bar, each one with his nose buried in Grindr instead of, you know, talking to the hot guys next to him."
I remember 25 years ago, walking into the new "video bar" in Chicago and seeing all the hot guys standing around not talking to one another or looking at each other. They just stared at the music videos on the TV screens.
The same bar now spans four storefronts and is the most popular gay bar in Chicago--and it's still a video bar. But now the patrons talk to one another, cruise, and interact with the video (especially on showtunes night). Just a few years later, there was a fear that the local BBSs (the predecessor to today's Internet) would devastate gay public life. Then the demon was gay chatrooms on AOL and then other gay profile/hookup sites.
There's a kind of absorption to the new, but eventually it gets integrated into our lives. The same will happen with Grindr.