Single Men of Park Slope: This Is You

Image credit: Emily Niland via The New York ObserverThe New York Observer has compiled a list entitled Eight Guys You Might Meet in Brooklyn: Read This Before Dating One. ‘The Brooklyn male is an elusive specimen’ it coos, using the word elusive quite wrongly, and promises to be a guide for ‘the next time you find yourself out in the Brooklyn wild with a hunger for a man-(child).’ How exotic and infantile we are, apparently! The archetypes are each assigned a neighborhood, the premise being that the neighborhood will dictate what kind of date the person will be (the locales listed are mainly in the grip of gentrification by the way – other Brooklyn neighborhoods apparently don’t merit inclusion).

What you can probably guess is that the Observer’s archetypes are fairly predictable and to a large extent interchangeable. The list in question is mostly just descriptions of ‘a guy’ peppered with some local bar names, which I suspect were randomly chosen from the Whatever Seems Popular on Yelp Guide to Brooklyn. There’s one unique example that stands out however, and it’s the entry for Park Slope.  Apparently, fellow men of Park Slope, according to Ms. Mooney our archetype is The Gamer, the weirdo above who looks like Beavis and Butthead’s guidance counselor. The Gamer? I know, I don’t get it either. Is there any element of truth in this, and where did this characterization come from? Would be interested in feedback, especially from the ladies. Here’s the full description:

Kind of a nerd, knows it, compensates by prioritizing FUN. Gives great date—always suggests a comedy night or trivia at Union Hall or the like rather than just drinks. Steadily and squarely employed, he dabbles in creative side projects and at least one sanctioned sports league to counteract boredom. He’s a little embarrassed about living in the Slope, defends his choice when it comes up by saying he got a pretty good deal on his place, and have you been to any of the great dive bars out here (waxes nostalgic about Jackie’s 5th Amendment, then takes you to South)? Has solid Dad potential.

Kind of a nerd? We’re not Murray Hill bros, if that’s what you mean. As for ‘gives great date,’ do we like fun when we go out, as in all-caps activities fun? Sure we do, but doesn’t everybody? And don’t say Gives Great Date, people – it makes you sound like someone interested in eating and drinking for free and then leaving guys on the curb. A little embarrassed about living in the Slope? F*ck no. This blog wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for fierce loyalists who wanted to read about and mock the ridiculous sh*t that happens here. Solid dad potential? Ok, I’ll give Ms. Mooney this one, but I think she’s confused by the fact that a lot of men who live in Park Slope are actually dads. To live in Park Slope as a single guy you still might have to deal with kids everywhere, fix shit that breaks in old apartments and cook in a lot. Yeah, we’ll probably say fair enough to Dad Material. We sure as hell don’t live here for the nightlife.

So, in the spirit of fairness, can we come up with anything better for Ms. Mooney? What is the archetypal Park Slope single male, if such a thing can be said to exist? Are there other Brooklyn archetypes you’d like to nominate? Is the entire concept of doing generalized clickbaity crap like this total h*rseshit?