Let’s start this tale of failure with a truth-filled declaration: I have no problem meeting the ladies. Whether combing the pristine floors of the Chelsea Apple Store, sipping Earl Gray at a local coffee shop, or cruising the aisles at Barnes & Noble, striking up engaging conversation with the fairer sex comes pretty naturally to me. That said, I’m not averse to using the marvels of the modern age to help form a love connection. Plenty of venues are available, ranging from online dating to tweetups. This weekend, however, I chose to experiment by using Color (3.5 stars, free), the new Android and iOS application. Given all the hype about the app (not least in PCMag.com), I assumed there would plenty of users nearby, wherever I went.
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Here’s a little background for the uninitiated. Color is a free location-aware app that lets people within 150 feet of one another access photos, video, and messages, simultaneously, from multiple smartphones in real time, using patent-pending Multi-lens technology. If you’ve read my Color review, you know that I was impressed with the ability to quickly exchange photo and video—and, most importantly for my weekend mission, to interact with other Color users by leaving messages. Color is a photosharing app, but it’s also a social networking app, in a way.
My goal was this: To find a female Color user, chat her up, and, hopefully, prove worthy enough to get a date. I planned to use Color by entering an area with a high density of people (a bar, park, or busy Manhattan street) and pick up a fellow user’s photostream. Then, I’d quickly scan for a female profile picture, compliment her on a well-snapped photo, and let the magic happen. Unfortunately, there were very slim pickings. Very slim.
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Friday Night: Barhopping in Gramercy and the Lower East Side
After I finished clocking the day’s hours at PCMag.com, I made a straight shot for a local watering hole just a few blocks from the office. I waltzed into the bar, whipped out my iPhone, and launched Color. There were many women in my immediate vicinity, so I had high hopes (especially for the brunette in the purple sweater a few seats away). Five minutes passed…nothing. Then a half-hour. Then a full hour. None of the potential candidates made a blip on the Color radar. All that came out of this bar trip were photos of college-aged, collar-popping brahs who had no issue sharing their drunken photos. And a bit of disappointment.
I met some friends in a LES bar later that evening, and briefed them regarding the task at hand. One was fascinated by the app’s voyeuristic nature; the other not so much. After my demo, I began to get a bit antsy as I couldn’t find a female Color user in the area. I began to grow concerned—not so much for my dating life, but how I was going to pull these failed attempts into some semblance of a story.
Saturday Evening: Union Square Park, Nintendo 3DS NYC Launch Event
I decided to head downtown to Union Square Park, a central hub where you can find people from many walks of life relaxing, chatting, dancing, and thoroughly enjoying the small oasis amidst the speeding taxis and packed sidewalks. Surely, there would be at least one straight woman using Color that would find my mug acceptable to look at from across a dinner table, right? Wrong. Once again, Color—no, society!—failed me. There were a few ladies sitting alone in the park—women that I would normally approach in a non-Color situation—but, apparently, they weren’t hip to the app. I sat for a while accessing the situation.
The Union Square excursion wasn’t totally without merit. Nintendo was out in full force to celebrate the launch of its new 3D handheld gaming console, so Color users in the area—the male Color users, that is—amassed some interesting shots of people playing games, eating the Nintendo-sponsored tacos, and grooving to a DJ spinning the wheels of steel. As I left Union Square, I began to realize that finding a date using Color was going to be far more difficult than I initially imagined.
Sunday Afternoon: The Staten Island Mall
My final attempt to get a date using Color took place in the Staten Island Mall. I fired up the app and it populated with images from not one, but two, women. I perked up in the belief that this would be the moment that would make this experiment worth while. The shots of the life-size Lady Ga Ga cut-out and Twilight book covers should’ve given me a clue that the pair were high schoolers (which I confirmed by swiping through their photo streams). This would’ve been awesome 25 years ago, but as someone pushing 40, I figured it was in my (and PCMag.com’s) best interest that I keep moving.
Analyzing The Misadventures
I gave Color a fair chance; scenarios presented here are just the more interesting of the many tries I gave the app over the weekend. I made several other attempts to find a date using Color, but they amounted to nothing more than me sitting somewhere playing with my iPhone. My adventures in Color dating crashed and burned, not because I was overly stalker-ish in my pursuit, but rather because there simply weren’t any women of age using the app.
Considering the amount of ink that Color received last week, I expected greater gender diversity. There were plenty of men using Color—but where were the women? There is no shortage of tech savvy women living in New York City (I personally know more than a few), so I was a bit perplexed by the entire situation.
Color has been available for less than a week, so the adoption rate may not be there yet—which is the most likely scenario. But when you factor in the heavy coverage that the app has received, it makes the entire affair even more disappointing.
Maybe New York women are just particularly privacy-conscious, but right now Color seems like a boys’ club.