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In this week’s issue, we’ve rounded up new, alternative ways to date in the city, from literary speed dating to conversing with paper bags over our heads. It's tough to date in this city, and it would be cruel to send you out to flirt without first making ourselves the guinea pigs, so six single Time Out New York staffers signed up for new apps and tried to make love (or at least like) happen. Each day this week, we’re bringing you our experiences. Yesterday, Deputy Editor Carla Sosenko gave JSwipe a whirl. Next up: Associate Content Editor Joseph Alexiou tries Distinc.tt.
The first thing I noticed about Distinc.tt, which bills itself as a less hookup-focused gay meeting app, is its nifty map feature. The app reveals where you are (gah!), and which other Distinc.tt users are around you. Zoom out enough, and the faces on the map get grouped together into little boxes with numbers that tell you how many people are in the vicinity of each box.
That’s when I began to suspect that this app was trouble: “What do you mean there’s only three gay men in this neighborhood?” I screamed at my iPad, knowing for certain that there are more homosexuals living on my Prospect Heights block than Distinc.tt believes are in most of Brooklyn. Despite this glaring deficiency, the clever little app functions well enough, like mashup of Facebook and Google maps. In addition to a light smattering of real people’s updates (“Jon B. Likes ‘Music’”), there are announcements for gay nightlife events that you can also find on Facebook.
Unfortunately, Distinc.tt won't work as a social network if nobody goes on it. Most of the members seem to stay active for the first day that they sign on—for one of the only cute guys I saw, apparently that was last May. Still, I wrote to him, asking if he could explain how this whole thing worked. I got no response. But, curiously, he did agree to be my “friend,” whatever that means. No, really—what does it mean?!
—Written by Joseph Alexiou