Out to dinner for a very close friend’s birthday downtown. Small place with about 25 people in it total. There was an urge to take photos of our perfectly made margaritas, the great presentation of the nachos and the laughing friends lit by the candlelight. The birthday cake bought by another friend for the lady of the evening comes out almost the size of her head. Instantly, I whip out my iPhone and snap the picture, posting it to Tumblr for all to see that 1)it’s my best friends birthday 2)look at the size of the cake! 3)to share a little bit about what I’m doing that night and to document. Harmless.

On the other side of the bar there is a girl with a few friends wearing a leotard over her jeans. Not an uber fashionista, I’m not one to usually gawk at an outfit but she was also dancing around like crazy and making a bit of a small scene. The entire table couldn’t stop staring at her and her unusual antics dancing around the bar. I immediately tried to snap another photo to share it. Why? WHY NOT.

Posting photos of your friends is OK and most of mine expect it now. When I take a picture on my phone I usually get the “is that going on your blog?” question. Sometimes it does, sometimes most of the time it doesn’t. Obviously some friends will say “Don’t tag me in that!” I do the same. But with strangers, I don’t offer them the opportunity to tell me to not post it and that’s kind of bad because honestly, I don’t want people posting me without my knowing.(Note-I don’t think people would. Don’t think I’m tooting my own horn here) In fact, my posting that photo of the girl (I didn’t) could have ended up crossing blog paths with someone else I know, causing an uncomfortable situation and so on.

So, where’s the line?

An article in yesterday’s New York Times about banning photos and tweets at certain bars and restaurants made sense to me. No one wants to go to dinner and have to worry about getting their photo taken by an unknown because they like your shoes or your bag, or if you’re lucky enough to be joined by a famous dinner date. You go to dinner to enjoy the meal and the company.

But, while that is a strong view of mine, I also like hearing about celebrity sightings at local stops. Example: A friend sat next to Matthew Broderick at a coffee shop a few weeks ago and my instant reaction was “Why didn’t you take a picture?!” Sure, the picture would have been of the back of his head or maybe a blurry action shot, but because of the current paparazzi state of the web, my instant reaction was to get proof and I wanted to see. I’ll admit I enjoyed the days when Gawker Stalker was really popular and I keep an eye on OMGICU. I also understand it’s a scary world for celebrities with stalkers and etc…

With the easy click of a button on a phone, the sense of annoyance of the paparazzi for celebrities also now applies to the normal person. As the article says, “On Facebook, “You have movie star issues, and you’re just a person,” she said.” It’s true. People take photos EVERYWHERE. Even when going on a recent vacation I asked my friend to not tag some of the photos and keep them private. It’s the normal person’s version of “No pictures please.”

What do you think? Do you agree with the banning of photos being taken in the bars or should we all just accept that our lives are now in a fishbowl and we need to deal with it?