Feb. 13 SoIn

DATING'S

DIGITAL

DOMAIN February 13, 2014

MODERN ROMANCE'S

ONLINE CONNECTION Also Inside:

New2Lou?

Meet Here

Celebrate singledom

2 SoIn

Feb. 13, 2014 P u b lis h er Bill Hanson E ditor Jason Thomas D esign Stephen Allen/Claire Munn P h otograp h y Ty l e r S t e w a r t

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 On the Cover:

Coffee shops provide an ideal setting to connect on social media as shown in this illustration at Coffee Crossing in New Albany.

Staff illustration by Tyler Stewart

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See how local entrepreneurs are baking success.

Love: A social media battlefield Local singles finding romance in all the social places

Drowning in a sea of pink and red, overcome by chocolate fumes wafting from heart-shaped candy boxes — it quickly became clear that a sub-theme to this week’s SoIn would be anti-Valentine’s Day. Even SoIn has single people. Hallmark has plenty of other holidays. That’s Jason Thomas, Editor not bashing you lovebirds.

Speaking of birds, this week’s cover story explores social media — Twitter, tweets, lovebirds! — replacing the sock hops of old as the modern forum to break the relationship ice.

Substitute “Hey girl, wanna dance?” with a direct message that might include a phrase like “MWAH” [the sound a kiss makes in the air] or “LOTR” [oops, sorry, that’s for “Lord of the Ring” geeks, wrong column] and you’re starting to get the idea. It’s tough to communicate interest in 140 characters or less, as required by Twitter.

So you make do.

Social media, and technology, in general, have invaded every aspect of our lives, romance included. If you’re in a healthy relationship, count your blessings. If you’re single, count your apps.

Technology’s infiltration into our most personal spaces can be good and bad, as you’ll read about inside these pages.

Like any resource, technology can be harnessed, used for good. SoIn folks are finding connections via social media. What counts is how you connect personally after Facebook or Twitter do the grunt work.

All is not lost: You’ll also find a list of some Valentine’s Day events to gaze into your honey’s eyes, old-school style. Just try to keep your smartphone in your pocket or purse.

Now if you’ll excuse me, “ISC.” [I smell chocolate].

— Jason Thomas is the editor of SoIn. He can be reached by phone at 812-206-2127 or email at jason. thomas@newsandtribune.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ScoopThomas.

[A social science]

New2Lou website makes connections  What: New2Lou  Website: new2lou.com  Twitter: @New2Lou

Wake up: Check your cellphone. Sitting in the bathroom: Check your cellphone. Out to dinner: Check your cellphone. Bored: Check your cellphone. In bed: Check your cellphone.

Our cellphones — smartphones, in most cases — might as well be a body appendage.

Trying to reach people these days? The quickest way is through hand-held devices via social media — but the real connections happen in person.

Louisville resident Stacey Servo can preach that religion. She and her husband, Amador, launched New2Lou in 2009 after moving to the area from Seattle as a way for

transplants — and replants — to meet people, try new places and plug into the community.

“For young professionals, you need to be where they’re at,” said Servo, 40, who owns a property management company and manages brands on social media. “Social media has allowed us as a business to be able to connect and engage without a tremendous amount of a marketing budget.

“Social media is about listening to people we connect with,” she added. “Really, it’s a two-way conversation that has allowed us to be able to grow and be able to change and do the things that people in our group want to see and do.”

People are listening.

What started as happy hour meet-ups via Facebook has grown to include monthly social events every Wednesday — this week’s was at the KFC Yum! Center — and an online sounding board for an organiza-

upcoming event  NEW2STYLIN: HAIR

When: 6 p.m. March 5 Where: Hair by Bennies, 2346 Frankfort Ave., Louisville Cost: $20 This is the first event in the New2Stylin series. New2Lou has partnered with Hair by Bennie to teach you insider hair styling tips so you can style your hair like a pro, every day. The expert of the night is New2Lou’s personal stylist and friend Michelle McKendrick.

tion that rmakes 10,000 connections through all its media sites, including email newsletter subscribers and Twitter.

“We’re really trying to get new people engaged and connected within the city as well as provide locals with incentives to kind of rediscover their own city,” Servo said, which includes “a lot of people who work here and commute from Southern Indiana.”

While information is accessed online — you’re reading this story on your smart-

Stacey Servo, co-founder of New2Lou phone, aren’t you? — the real value of New2Lou comes with personal connections.

“We engage online and connect and engage in person,” Servo said. “I think that’s where the real connections are made. Once you make those connections, you continue to engage online and vice-versa.”

1

Feb. 13, 2014

3 To Go

3

ANTI-VALENTINE’S DAY DINNER When: 7 p.m. Friday

More Inside: For more local anti-Valentine’s Day events, see Entertainment on page 6

2

Where: Garage Bar, 700 E. Market St., Louisville Cost: $29 per person Garage Bar is partnering this year with Stone Brewing Co. for its second annual Anti-Valentine’s Day Dinner. Featuring a three course family style dinner with beer pairings, you won’t even miss having a sweetheart this Valentine’s Day. Who knows, maybe the love of your life will be seated across from you? Don’t want to be tied down to a partner or a pre-fixe dinner? No worries. Just bring yourself in for dinner and it will be serving Garage Bar’s regular menu with non-committal beer pairing suggestions. It will also be offering Stone Grapefruit IPA all night as well. Reservations for the dinner are limited; 502-749-7100 to book a spot.

— garageonmarket.com

3 IUS Concert Band’s Winter Pops Concert

When: 3 p.m. Sunday Where: Richard K. Stem Concert Hall of the Paul W. Ogle Cultural and Community Center, 4201 Grant Line Road, New Albany Cost: $8 adults; $5 students The concert will be dedicated to the memory of Don McMahel with all proceeds to benefit the Donald and Elizabeth McMahel Music Scholarship. Tickets available at the Ogle Center ticket office by calling 812-941-2526, or online at ius.edu/oglecenter.

Valentine’s Day dinner with a view

When: Friday and Saturday Where: Bristol Bar & Grille, 700 W. Riverside Drive, Jeffersonville The Bristol will offer Valentine’s Day specials with optional wine pairings by Master Sommelier Scott Harper. Chef Richard Doering has prepared a menu of à la carte dishes ranging from $10 for oysters Rockefeller gratin to $26 for ribeye with truffle salt. For more information or to make reservations, call 812-218-1995. [bristolbarandgrille.com]

More Inside: For more local Valentine’s Day events, see Entertainment on page 7

Gotta Go: Interested in seeing your event in our 3 To Go?

Email SoIn Editor Jason Thomas at jason.thomas@newsandtribune.com

4

FEATURE

SO ME

FEB. 13, 2014

The new SCENE

Finding rom

By Jason Thomas jason.thomas@newsan

I

t goes somethin on Facebook or “like” a few of “favorites” and ret

Staff illustration by Tyler Stewart

Then comes the inev sage on Facebook, a di on Twitter. Through m flirting begins. Flirting cyber-petting. Cellpho are exchanged.

Game on.

It’s the modern langu and it’s happening via According to the Pew R Center’s Internet & Am Project, 30 percent of s working site users with recent dating experience have used social media to find out more information about someone they were interested in dating.

Some call it stalking.

Others call it research. called, social media — Twitter, even LinkedIn sents a growing breedi for breaking the relatio

OCIAL EDIA

new sock hop E of today?

mance through the web

ndtribune.com

ng like this: You get a friend request r a new follower on Twitter. She might your Facebook posts or pictures. He tweets some of your tweets.

vitable: a mesirect message messaging, g turns into one numbers

especially among social media users ages 18 to 29.

[Welcome to dating in 2014]

“If you want an in-person relationuage of love ship then I think social media can a social media. be fine if you take it for what it is Research — words on a screen,” said Allison merican Life From, director of counseling servicsocial netes and assistant professor of psychology at Spalding UniMr. Wrongs versity in Louisville. “Know• 27% - number ing yourself is the most important thing, and being of users have flexible enough to know that blocked someone social media is only one way for flirting — Source: pewresearch of knowing people. .

“We are a very complex Whatever it’s species with many facets to our per— Facebook, sonalities, and sometimes the part n — reprethat comes out through social media ing ground is only one part.” onship ice,

[RECONNECTING ON FACEBOOK]

town, got married on March 23, 2013.

While Dillman says social media “might possibly take away some of the romanticism, where your eyes meet across the room and you fall in love instantly,” she was at the point in her life where Facebook was the answer.

“It just makes it easier to get all of the butterflies out before you meet them face-to-face,” she said.

But the basics are the same.

The two started chatting online via a text-based game that John-Michael was working on as a college project.

“On one hand, it was good that we just spent a year talking and communicating,” Karen, 39, said. “The reality then and the reality now is that people can present an entirely different face online than in real life.

That’s always in the back of people’s minds: Is this person really who they say they are?”

Turns out he was. The two discovered they had similar senses of humor and backgrounds and eventually exchanged photos — via snail mail! — and actual letters. They were married in 1999, have two children and live in the Georgetown area.

“We learned to communicate really well,” Karen said about the online spark. “There wasn’t a physical presence for a long time. In a way I think that gave us an edge. Today, I would be so nervous about everything. It’s so different now.”

Life has become more compressed, says Bassett, who has a master’s degree in social work and bachelor’s in psychology. Social media has a different meaning now than in 1994.

“To some extent, there’s a little bit of a de-personalization going on there,” she said. “Our attention spans are a bit shorter. Life’s so much faster-paced these days.”

[CONNECTING IN A GAME OF LOVE] Leslie Dillman readily admits she “stalked” her now-husband’s Facebook page before working up the nerve to friend him.

Dillman, 45, and her husband, Mike, 49, would chat via Facebook for hours every night after work.

He asked her out on their first date before they even talked on the phone.

But when they finally did chat, “it was pretty cool,” she said. “We talked for eight hours straight. Our phones died.”

Facebook served as a reconnection network of sorts for Dillman. She had a crush on Michael when they worked at Burger King in Louisville 29 years ago. He was 20. She was 15.

Life went on, and the two went their separate ways.

But Dillman, who works in medical records at a local pharmacy, decided to look up her long-time crush on Facebook four years ago.

“I think it’s made it so much easier,” Dillman said of social media’s role in dating. “It’s so much easier to meet people. I don’t go out to the bar scene. At that point I wasn’t involved in church activities. I really had no way of meeting men.

“With social media, I think you can just reach out there. You get to know each other’s personalities beforehand. I knew there was a connection before any of the physical attributes came into play.”

The couple, who live in Charles-

If a bible were to be written about Internet dating, Karen Bassett’s story could be the Book of Genesis.

She and her future husband, JohnMichael Bassett, met online in 1994 in the age of web crawlers, Mozilla and Netscape. What happens every day now was uncommon back then.

It was social media before the invention of the term.

Setting the mood on social media % of social networking site users with recent dating experience who have used social media to ...

50% 40 30

Total

41 30

20

18 12

10 0

18-29

Get more info on a potential date

Friend or follow someone recommended as a match

15

17

Ask someone out

Source: Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project Spring Tracking Survey, April 17 May 19, 2013. N=2,252 adults ages 18+. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish and on landline and cell phones.

PEW RESEARCH CENTER | Stephen Allen, News and Tribune

6 Entertainment

Feb. 13, 2014

ANTI-VALENTINE’S DAY Nazareth might have said it best: “Love hurts, love scars, love wounds, yadda yadda yadda.” So drown all your sorrows at these lovely yet local anti-Valentine’s Day events.

 Irish Exit fourth annual Anti-Valentine’s Day Party

When: Friday Where: Irish Exit, 207 E. Main St., New Albany Drink specials all night; DJ eddieMike

 Howl at the Moon Love Sux Party

When: 5 p.m. Friday Where: Howl at the Moon, 434 S. Fourth St., Louisville Love? No, we prefer vodka. Forget Valentine’s Day and come celebrate without the ooey-gooey crap at its ninth annual AntiValentines Day Party. Enjoy a cynical Anti-Valentine’s Day with great drink specials and games with $500 in cash and prizes! And of course, our dueling pianos will be rocking your favorite anti-love jams!

Love Sux drink specials: • $9 Ex-Boyfriends • $6 F-Bombs • $4 Craft Beers, excluding Bourbon Infused Bring a mutilated pic of your ex and the band will buy your first drink.

 Awkward Valentine’s Day Dinner

When: 6 to 10 p.m. Friday Were: Apocalypse Brew Works, 1612 Melwood Ave.

Cost: Free Did you know that Liz and Jesse from Grind Food Truck met on an online dating site? Yup, that’s right. Super awkward but also super awesome, right? Do you have a special guy with a kinda creepy profile picture or a lady you’d like to get to know better but she might be a little too into her cats? Then this is the Valentine’s Day event for you. No stuffy servers, no wine lists to pretend you know how to pick from and no reservations. Beer, burgers and lots of other people since you know, you’re supposed to meet in public places when you meet online. We’ll even have some special sweet treats for all you Google-stalking love birds. Come be as un-awkward as possible with us. All you happily married and single folk are obviously welcome as well.

We’re just trying to make some love connections — or maybe Missed Connections depending on how the evening goes. [apocalypsebrewworks.com]

 Charity Speed Dating

When: 7 to 11 p.m. Friday Where: NACC Bar and Grill,1702 Graybrook Lane, New Albany Are you Single and looking for a fun way to meet other singles?

Then this is definitely an event for you! The aim of the evening is to provide a no pressure way of connecting with like-minded singles. A series of mini-dates in a single night. You decide if you’re tempted for a second date or a friend connection and if the feeling is mutual we will give you each others contact details. For more information email sugarbearcares2@gmail.com or call 502-632-6571 or visit sugarbearcares.com.

Movies:

ALBUMS:

Books:

Feb. 14

Feb. 14

Feb. 18

 “Endless Love”

é “Winter’s Tale”

 “Three Days to Kill:

 “Hotel Valentine” by Cibo

Matto

Feb. 17

é “Peroxide by Nina Nesbitt

é “Trapped Under the Sea: One Engineering Marvel, Five Men, and a Disaster Ten Miles Into the Darkness” by Neil Swidey

This week's SoIn

PLAYLIST Q&A WITH THE MAD TAXPAYERS Lineup: Kevin Bratcher — vocals; David Pierce — bass; Shawn Narron — guitar; Rob King — drums Homebase: Southern Indiana How/when did your band form? The Mad Taxpayers started 18 years ago with David and Shawn.

Where did the name come from? Everyone’s a Mad Taxpayer!

Describe your band’s sound/inspiration.

Heavy rock ‘n’ roll (we love all types of music) What do you make of the local music scene?

We support all local musicians and have lots of friends in the live music scene. We love playing music and playing for our friends fans and family and being a part of local music. Our favorite places to play are outdoor venues like RiverStage (Jeffersonville) and festivals. We love our hometown bars but get a rush playing in front of large crowds. The secret to the band is we are all very good friends and don’t like any drama or tolerate any. If it gets to be that

 Upcoming gigs: March 29: Mackdaddys, Charlestown April 5: Cloud 9, Seymour April 11 and 12: Horseshoe Southern Indiana, Elizabeth April 18: Hoopsters, Jeffersonville April 25: Wick’s Pizza Parlor, Goose Creek Road, Louisville May 30 and 31: Horseshoe Southern Indiana we are not having fun it’s not worth doing. We love to write our own music and have distributed over 3,000 CDs of our own original music in Southern Indiana and Louisville.

Feb. 13, 2014

Local Happenings Feeling left out? Send your establishment’s and/or organization’s upcoming events/new features/entertainment information to SoIn Editor Jason Thomas at jason.thomas@newsandtribune.com

 Live music at Horseshoe

Where: Horseshoe Southern Indiana, 11999 Casino Center Drive SE, Elizabeth ENVY Stage Bar: Friday and Saturday [9:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.]: Radiotronic; Wednesday and Thursday [8 p.m. to midnight]: Audio Addiction Legends: tonight [9 p.m. to midnight]: Drake White; Friday [9 p.m. to 1:45 a.m.]: Drake White; Saturday [9:45 to 1:45 a.m.]: Rick Bartlett; Wednesday and Thursday [9 p.m. to midnight]: Endless Summer

 Wick’s Live on State

Where: Wick’s Pizza Parlor, 225 State St., New Albany Friday: Joe Hanna [8 p.m. to midnight]; Big Rock Show [10 p.m. to 2 a.m.]; Saturday: Kevin & Kyle [8 to midnight]; Wax Factory [10 p.m. to 2 a.m.]; Wednesday: 8Inch Elvis - acoustic [8 p.m. to midnight]

 Buckhead Mountain Grill

Where: 707 W. Riverside Drive, Jeffersonville Open late for National Farm Machinery Show: Friday, live country music starting at 10 p.m. [open until 1 a.m.]; Saturday, live country music starting at 10 p.m., open until 1 a.m.

 Music at Huber's Winery

When: 1 to 5 p.m. on weekends Where: Huber’s Orchard, Winery & Vineyards, 19816 Huber Road, Starlight Lineup: Saturday: Josh Glauber; Sunday: Petar Mandic [huberwinery.com]

 Chocolate Lover’s Weekend at Huber's Winery

When: Saturday and Sunday Where: Huber’s Orchard, Winery & Vineyards, 19816 Huber Road, Starlight On these sweet weekends in February, Huber Winery will offer different chocolates delicately paired with a selection of wines.

This is a complimentary event, so no reservations are required, and the event is associated with the Indiana Uplands Wine Trail. [huberwinery.com]

 Chocolate Lover’s Weekend at Best Vineyards When: noon to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

VALENTINE'S DAY EVENTS Not everyone is bitter or single these days. Here are a few area events celebrating l’amour with good food and/or dancing.

 Second Baptist Church inaugural Valentine Fundraiser Gala

When: 7 p.m. Friday Where: The Grand, 138 E. Market St., New Albany Cost: $50 Event includes dinner, dancing, prizes. Music by Ms. Krystal, the midday radio personality for Praise Power 1350; The Jon Driver Jazz Duo. Tickets can be purchased at the Grand on Valentine’s Day from noon to 3 p.m. For more information call 502-2771101

 Rekindle the Flame

When: 4 to 7:30 p.m. Friday Where: The Vintage Fire Museum and Safety Education Center, 723 Spring St., Jeffersonville Cost: $20 per couple There will be a champagne toast and a chance to pose with your sweetheart on any vintage fire engine during the “Rekindle the Flame” celebration.

Those that attend will also receive a package of heart-shaped candy from Schimpff’s and a chance to explore the museum. Reservations aren’t nec-

essary but can be made by calling 812-282-4705.

 Valentine’s Day prix fixe menu

Entertainment 7

When: 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday Where: Winston’s restaurant at Sullivan University, 3101 Bardstown Road, Louisville Cost: $39 to $51 Winston’s restaurant at Sullivan University is celebrating Valentine’s Day with a special four-course prix fixe menu created by executive chef John Castro.

Each guest will have their choice of soup, an appetizer or salad, entrée and dessert. Prices ranges from $39 to $51 per person depending on the entrée selected. The menu price does not include tax, tip or beverages. Seating is limited, so it is recommended that guests make reservations by calling 502-456-0980.

Where: Best Vineyards, 8373 Morgans Lane SE, Elizabeth Indulge in chocolate with flourless brownies, Mexican chocolate pound cake, chocolate orange shortbread cookies, cream cheese stuffed chocolate cupcakes and chocolate waffles with wine reductions.

The best part?

Wash down all of your chocolate indulgence with Bitfrost, an “ice” style wine. [bestvineyardswinery.com]

[KISS AND TELL]

IU's Kinsey Institute wants the skinny on Valentine's Day

By JON BLAU (Bloomington) Herald-Times A smartphone app from Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute is asking what people want on Valentine’s Day — and it’s not focusing just on flowers and chocolate.

The Kinsey Reporter, a mobile application that launched briefly in 2012 before being shut down for a legal review of its privacy functions, has added a survey on sexual behavior during Valentine’s Day as a way to reboot.

After a comeback in May 2013, it wasn’t until a few months ago that all the bugs were worked out of the program, according to Filippo Menczer, the director of IU’s Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, who helped design the app.

“The more data we have, the more we can slice and dice the data,” Menczer said. Researchers, with more responses, hope to look at patterns of sexual behavior linked to age and location, and even national policies on birth control.

The app can be downloaded from the Apple iOS Store or Google Play for Android devices.

The Valentine’s Day survey questions respondents on what they want to happen during the holiday.

Then they want to know what actually happened — sexually.

All of the information is collected anonymously.

While researchers would like to have user accounts for tracking purposes, they can’t be made in the app,

“We know, unfortunately, there is a huge cost for victims in coming forward, dealing with the police, the shame, the trials,” Menczer said. “We know it’s terrible, and many people just try to forget it.

“But we hope if they have the app, and if they know they can help others by reporting it anonymously on the app, at least we’ve lowered the cost, and we can know what happened and how it happened.”

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and responses aren’t analyzed until a certain number of surveys have been collected from certain locations. Once there is a “critical mass,” Menczer said, researchers can aggregate data and compare it with the Valentine’s Day survey to see how hopes and expectations match with reality.

The survey asks questions like “What does one’s heart most desire for Valentine’s Day?” Possible answers range from “left alone” to “companionship,” “commitment” to “sex.” The app also asks about “actual sexual activity” on the lovers’ holiday.

Users can identify themselves by country, state or city; because respondents

who register by country will be part of a larger pool, their data will come out of the “queue” earlier, Menczer said, but any user who identify themselves by city or town will have their information hidden until more responses come from that location.

After IU’s lawyers and outside counsel took a second look at the app, Menczer said, they found it met their privacy concerns. One of the other goals of the survey is to study “unwanted experiences,” crimes such as sexual assault and rape, and there was fear that researchers could be compelled by law enforcement to provide data if responses could be traced back to their source.

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