NEW YORK – Love is in the air and on the shelves. Where better to find a literary cutie than at a bookstore singles event?
This was the ethos five days before Valentine's Day at Book Club Bar in lower Manhattan at an event created by Bored of Dating Apps, an organization eager to overpower online dating culture with in-person connection.
“We’re about rom-com culture,” says Grace Clark Delgado, one of the on-site hosts. “Dating culture feels like we can’t have that. But when you come to this, you absolutely can.”
If guests felt any stakes given the impending heart-shaped holiday, BODA made it clear there were none – there would be no speed dating activities or red lighting, just mingling amid walls of bookshelves on a weeknight. You could lock down a Valentine, or you could just meet a new friend. Some participants go home with a new connection, and others flirt a little and then buy some books, Clark Delgado says.
When I arrived at Book Club Bar, the evening readers still dominated the barstools. The back room, siphoned off for the event, was empty. The East Village bookstore and bar has a regular lineup of events, but they’re mostly known as a place for a date with your hardcover.
