What happens here stays here. You've had to have heard it by now. It seems like every time I turn on the radio or the television it's emblazoned into my psyche. The funny thing is that when I hear it, I think about it as it applies to tourists. The irony is that although for a tourist visiting Sin City this slogan may seem to portray an anonymous paradise where everything goes without consequence, the reality for those of us that dwell here is the fact that our populous is just intimate enough that what goes on here truly does stay here and quite often winds up back in our faces. Good or bad. Now I'm not saying that this is always a bad thing, in point of fact it's not every city that you can run into a pleasant remembrance time and time again. The scary thing is that unless you're among the chosen few who have found someone for the long term, you're bound to run into your more unpleasant demises more often than you find too much starch on your average buffet. Now feel free to disagree, that's what this country is all about, but I find that no matter how much I change my social patterns, it seems that the people I've connected with at one time or another change on the same paradox loaded roulette wheel I bounce along on and wind up in the same forsaken places that I choose to frequent. I suppose if I were to subscribe to the same thirty one flavor mentality that most of my age group seems to enjoy, it wouldn't matter. The damnable misery is that I don't. Now I'm no Byron and I'm not crying in my port over loves that have gone wrong, but the train wrecks of my recent and not so recent past would be a lot easier to heal and move on from if I weren't forced to relive the crash site every other time I go out. So what? Do I just stay home now and concentrate on becoming somebody that I absolutely am not? Hell no! So then come the alternatives. First of all I have to think about what it is that even makes this an issue. I gotta say the obvious conclusion after talking with my friends, confidants, and even some of the ex.s who have remained in my life is I'm a blithering idiot! Somewhere through the years that paved the road to writing our beloved valley's buzz slogan, I missed every road sign. You know the ones I'm talkin' about. YIELD (to thinking of any sense of monogamy), STOP (letting your heart be a factor in dating), EXPECT DELAYS (in matters of commitment), and my favorite, MUST BE 21 OR OVER WITH ID (fake or not if your hot please come in). Now look, I don't want you to get the feeling that I'm mad or bitter, because I'm not I tell you, I'm not! I'm just disappointed, and it gets to me that because what happens here stays here, you don't get to just get disappointed once per instance. It's like the seven degrees of separation rule is to the power of 12 or something here. Now, back to the alternatives. Oh, who am I kidding. Aside from completely succumbing to the stick and move method of dating that seems to be more popular here than a twenty year old at an after hours club, the only other choice is to become as hard as the outer shell on a never-ending gobstopper. I mean lets face it, we're collectively caught up in a game of pure survival that makes Navy Seal School look like a week at Band Camp. Now I'm not so jaded that I don't understand the excitement of anonymous sex or friends with benefits, but I guess eventually I realized that for myself those years left an emotional void that would've left Carl Sagan contemplating an entirely new black hole theory that would have finally conclusively proved the presence of anti-matter. I guess what I'm trying to say in my own little diarrhea of the mouth manner, is that the disappointment that I feel in the whole situation is just a reflection of the emptiness that comes from the inherent behavior that our little singles scene subculture is wrapped up in like a poisonous gyro. When it all boils down, there is no answer to the situation, and, as it is with most of life's little quandaries, we'll just have to deal with it. My wise old father once said to me in a very deep conversation in relation to dating girls, 'Life sucks, get a helmet'. Had I known that the helmet he referenced would be made of latex, and the aloofness he used in his conclusion was to prepare me for the empty partners I would be forced to face life with, I would have had a lot easier passed decade. Then again, he was probably just as full of s&%* as I and the rest of the singles scene is. Whatever, I think that one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given is 'they're all sisters, don't trust 'em'. Sure, it's a bit on the defensive side, but it does give you a lot better chance of making it out of this thing alive. I think the guy who gave it to me is married now, but none the less, I still think it's good advice. One thing's for sure, the dating disaster area that we have created and now contend with is definitely something that reminds you full well that life has consequences. The funny thing is that of all places it would take Las Vegas to show me that not only are good relationships hard to find, it's even more important that we nurture them. Now, I'm not going to go all Dr. Phil on you here, Hell I'd rather trade in my Mach 3 razor for a nuclear powered egg beater, but it has become apparent to me that in a town with more issues than T.V. Guide what happens here truly does, and probably deserves to, stay here. No matter whether it stays or goes, it is what it is.