To name the most glaring examples:

1. The philly.com guy did not “walked around the circle at the end of the potluck mouthing to people asking if they were indeed ‘Rittenhouse Square.’” That just didn’t happen.

2. There was a brief discussion of whether internet is dumbing down society–not television. While that’s still a somewhat serious question, it’s a logical brief conversation to have with a group of internet-focused people.

3. The attendee who mentioned Weight Watchers didn’t awkwardly confess that she had a “10-year-long use of/battle with Weight Watchers” She mentioned counting calories (while eating cookies and cupcakes) and someone (I believe one of your friends) asked her about what program she used. She mentioned the length of time she used it in response to a different question. This in no way resembled a confession (unless dieting is now embarrassing?).

I understand you’re trying to be satirical and exaggerate events to entertain the readers of philebrity (1,000 photos, etc), but your review came across as just plain old mean spirited.

I agree that meetings of strangers needn’t be a contest to see who’s the wittiest, but there’s no need to pigeonhole what’s considered comfortable. The author might want to relax and learn how to gracefully navigate strange conversation and unwelcome facebook/myspace invites.

“One guy had a green toothbrush sticking out of his pocket, and oddly enough, his favorite color was green.”

“Another potluck attendee sported a tiger tattoo creeping down her arm and a tiger t-shirt to match.”

“And here’s where the magic happens: The twenty-something sitting beside her actively collects tiger memorabilia! Posters, stuffed animals, tiger themed coffee cups, the works.” (super nice of you, btw!)

“The best of all was the Philly.com guy who snapped close to 1,000 pictures of people on their cell phones ‘tweeting’ and walked around the circle at the end of the potluck mouthing to people asking if they were indeed ‘Rittenhouse Square.’” (which, actually, was closer to about 10, not 1,000).

“The awkward went into high gear when one of the females in the circle brought up her 10-year-long use of/battle with Weight Watchers.”

how are those not personal jabs? and publicly! you know, the use of a social networking site to experiment with a meeting of strangers to see the cross section of people who use it and are willing to talk about their experiences with it isn’t all together a bad idea, but when the inviter’s friend makes comments like this afterwards, on a blog people read, it sort of leaves the door open for some countercriticism, no?

ultimately, i think this post was a conversation that should have been kept between you and your friends and a simple “oops” would have helped, but you stand by your insults, so i’ll stand by mine.

next time, think about a different venue to throw your feelings of awkwardness, rather than on the heads of people who choose to be – gasp! – friendly.

maybe you were suddenly transported back to college orientation because you sat back and made superficial comments about everyone back then, too.

don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.