Cool people can't go out on Saturday anymore.

Because the uncool people are out.

“In the old days, Saturday was the destination night for chic New Yorkers headed to Studio 54 at its most resplendent,” [said Michael Musto, the longtime Village Voice night-life columnist.] “But things changed as more and more tri-staters were willing to use the bridges and tunnels for here-we-come Gotham weekends, so the locals started staying home and triple-bolting their doors as if in a George Romero film.”...

Last Saturday, four Manhattanites in their early 30s were huddling over a low table downstairs at Buddakan, the cavernous pan-Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district. “During the weekends, you get a lot of clutter, if you will,” said Brian Kirimdar, 30, an investment banker. He and his wife, Ashley, tend to hide out in restaurants on Saturdays, avoiding all but a few of the Chelsea clubs. “You don’t find too many bridge-and-tunnel people at Cielo or Marquee,” he said. “You really have to pick and choose.”

Zombies! Clutter! The aversion to other people permeates human life. The wonder is that anyone ever ventures out at all. What riffraff is out there!

And yet they do go out. They go out and still imagine that they are hiding out in restaurants and only a few clubs.