Has the paradigm changed for gay bars?

[meridannight]

A bartender in Pensacola Florida I've been emailing with told me they've shrunk from five down to two in the past three years. He says that all the social media and hook up sites have made it easy for people who used to go to bars to stay at home and get their rocks off using fake profiles and essentially living fantasy lives, never meeting anyone in person.

Has anyone else noticed how many of them are suddenly closing? It's like they are just fading out of existence! Some that have been in business for decades have either closed or turned into straight bars!

in my area there haven't been any closings past few years. things have been pretty much the same. i do know that one bar gets complaints from one local establishment near them that hasn't even made it a secret that it's because it's a gay bar and that their aim is to get it shut down. so their problems have more to do with outright bigotry.

as for hooking up on the internet and stuff, i very much prefer in person interaction. you can get a much clearer picture about a guy from when you see him in person than from a thousand pictures he could send you or anything he tells you through written communication. i have hooked up with guys over the net and i have met decent my-type of guys like that, but the majority have been guys i wouldn't have gotten together with had the first communication taken place in person. it's a gamble.

i know i will never prefer social media for real physical interaction with people. and i will never understand why some people do, and i actually think this shift is troubling. people should be talking to each other in person, not through an invisible interaction.