i can't get no satisfaction

"Kato, I'm upset with myself," blurted Kathleen as she refilled our twice-emptied margarita glasses last night. "I think I'm 'in like'!"

She met this boy a few weeks ago who's been pulling all sorts of typical "fratboys dating in DC" crap with her. You know what I mean. It's the kind of bullsh*t that newbies like my girl might not notice yet, but to veterans of the DC dating scene it just isn't cute anymore. Date me or don't, but spare me the play-it-safe middle-of-the-line nonsense -- I don't need to get sh*tty and exchange witty quips with you at a dirty bar in Adams Morgan 4 weekends in a row without so much as a single sober one-on-one rendezvous. You're wasting my precious "flirting with that other boy" time. I've already told her to drop his *ss -- this city is teeming with men -- but she's holding out hope that he'll come around and invite her out to dinner, already! Or at least that she'll get a little satisfaction from all the blue-balling they've been doing to each other. I totally get that -- you gotta seal the deal or else he's unfinished business. A ghost of fruitless flings past.

Only in DC, right? Out in the Flyover States girls our age are dying to find Mr. Right, but here 24-year-olds recoil at the idea of coupledo(o)m. Where some find fulfillment, others find their worst nightmare.

Lately I've been hearing a lot of buzz about this elusive "fulfillment." It's the new Livestrong armband -- everybody's gotta have it but no one has any idea where to get it. Everyone seems to think you get it from someone else (fulfillment=STD?), which is interesting since being "someone" would qualify me to pass it along and yet I don't feel like I'm a carrier.

Tony Robbins -- the super-sized womanizer and general sleazeball slash "life coach" -- is a big proponent of the idea that you find fulfillment in your interactions with others. He gave this whole long blahblahblah spiel on something-or-other that you can watch on TED.com where he examines the things that lead to fulfillment, eventually landing on "interpersonal connection and love." Which is kind of his area of expertise, as Lainey found out in her extensive research -- he made what I am sure was an agonizing decision to drop his wife of 15 years like sh*t-streaked underwear and then marry a woman 22 years her junior within 12 months. An upgraded model to match his obscene new money -- another classy move by the financial elite. Clearly, Mr. Robbins knows all about the sacred bonds of love money can buy; maybe I should buy his tapes and learn how to love, like him! Or I could just get them for Lainey and watch with her. Happy birthday! ... Unrelated but entertaining note: When they got married, his second wife not only took his last name, but also changed her first name. I'm not entirely sure what that says about her, but it causes an involuntary head-tilt and brow-wrinkle that usually indicates I think it's massively stupid.

But I digress. As usual.

I, for one, would say that I am generally unfulfilled in life. Yep, I'm still lookin' for my bliss. It's like the Universe's huge scavenger hunt with the ultimate prize -- God, I hope it's worth it in the end. Not that I'd consider giving up on the hunt. I think it's a genetic flaw that causes me to ache for whatever part it is that's missing in me, and then a sign of insanity that I keep trying to same things over and over to try to make myself whole. But I'm ready to consider that there are other ways to achieve fulfillment than constantly being busy and hyper-social. I know -- how very un-DC of me!

Fear not, lone reader, for your brave heroine still carries the city's vibe -- if not the innate human ability to bring meaning into the lives of others -- in certain ways. My general reluctance, like Kathleen's, to being "in like," for instance. Huh. I wonder if the two concepts are somehow related...