(n) salad bar : a bar where diners can assemble a salad to their own taste

SC and I were talking about the salad bar of dating options available in DC... the Jewish Non-Profit guys, the Ivy League Consultants, the Lawyers, the Capital Hill Staffers, the CFA's... and that's just in Dupont Circle. You've got guys in Arlington, Bethesda, and Baltimore who are even more diverse. AND, the confusing part about the options, unlike in NYC where you might meet a couple different guys where one's sort of into acting and one's sort of into indie rock and one's sort of into Investment Banking. In DC, it's cool to be really really really into whatever the hell you're into. Be it blogging, music, politics, or prose. Every guy is pretty much defined by their interests, because DC is a city full of joiners. Passionate people who enjoy joining things. Doing things. Being things. NYC is much more a culture of independents. Everyone in NYC wants to be the first to do, to discover, to like. No one's that passionate about anything.

But DC. Now DC is a Salad Bar full of individuals, each matching quite well with a variety of other items in the Salad Bar. You can come up with countless matches and combinations. So at what point do you say to yourself, "Now this, this is what I work best with."

It's easy enough to date a couple people in DC at one time, if you so choose. Everyone's got so many interests and an Outlook calendar full of activities... from kickball to volunteering to happy hours to receptions to brunch. You could find someone who has similar activities to yours, and do your own thing for the other days of the week. Or you could find several people in each of your activities and date them all. But, you do take the risk, that say I was dating someone other than APK, let's call him X (APK, there's no X.... for the record... just making a point here). And APK and I do happy hours and dinners together. But I play softball. And X plays softball with me. So I date X when we have softball games together. There's a good chance APK and X may run into each other at kickball or a museum or anywhere else because we're all a combination of different activities here... and we're all really into our activities... and it's completely possible that if APK is romaine lettuce and I'm italian dressing and X is bacon bits. That while X and I usually combine ourselves with arugula, somehow APK and X may choose ranch dressing all together.

Follow my logic.

All I'm saying is that while it's nice to have options, it's not so nice to have drama. And, my suggestion would be to stick to the idea of knowing there are options when you're single, but sticking to a distinct combination when you're not.