But I want to get back to the question of singles events at museums, especially because earlier in the day, commenter ty, in a delightfully convenient threadjack, posted a fairly scathing critique of the after hours events at Washington, D.C.'s Hirshhorn museum. While they're not explicitly singles events, and billed as a chance to enjoy the exhibitions with some booze, music, and frequently an artist talk, that's what they feel like. ty wrote:
"Nearly everyone is tipsy, but still on guard; everyone is pretentious about the art, but nearly no one stops to really look at it; the music is impossible to dance to; it's too crowded. It's an absolutely brilliant idea with really poor execution. Perhaps I should have been scared away by the self-conscious lack of capital letters."
Prescient, huh? I think the problem is that it's very hard to turn a place, in this case, a museum, into a hunting ground, and have it maintain its original purpose. If you try to get singles together at a museum, there will be some people who are there for the art, some people who are there for the art and the other people, and some people who are just there for the other people. It won't narrow down the scene enough to people who are genuinely interested in art and talking about it with other people to be a useful filtering device for folks who are looking for like-minded art lovers, just as meeting in bars doesn't actually filter scenes down enough to people who really like, say, bourbon, and other people who are there to enjoy it and find other people to talk to about it.