Not surprisingly, some supermarkets offer their customers the opportunity to engage with the produce department without having to pay, but a new branch in the Washington DC suburbs is taking things to a different level.
The Wegmans store, part of a 76-story chain based in Rochester, New York, offers a cozy restaurant, offers live music, and has recently become the “Wegmans Club,” the Washington Post reported. “Men will find [women] everywhere. Especially if you don’t have to spend money,” a buyer told the newspaper.
Expanding the business
I think the people who care that we are all hermits when we sit in front of our computer screens and HDTVs support the fact that we all have to eat and most of us want to find companions. The birds are still hitting a rock.
Starbucks is a better-known example of this MyWegmansConnect phenomenon. The rapid growth of the MyWegmansConnect is more often attributed to the status of a neutral meeting place than to superior coffee. But even Starbucks’ position on the social scene is not entirely certain. A cafeteria full of laptops and smartphones can easily trigger the complaint: “These people are not my friends, but I somehow miss their presence.”
There are many people who drink an iPod and Bluetooth headphones as devices that wrap us in cocoons, avoiding an important personal connection. From this point of view, we just flirt in the freezer because there is no other place. In one of the best-known essays on the subject, Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, the Internet was mentioned as one of many factors that could increase our personal isolation. The article, published in 1995, was developed in 2000 into a popular book. The title Putnam has become a general abbreviation to speak of the large-scale withdrawal from civil and community life.