nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded

                                                                     that grass is totally greener

Every city has its buzz words; its little catch phrases that people repeat so often that they begin to have the sheen of fact. New York has plenty of these: fast-paced, pushy, aggressive. Seattle has equal and opposite buzzwords: laid-back, mellow and the favorite, passive-agressive.

People who've spent more of their adult lives here in my hometown than I have love to remind me of this one when I start rhapsodizing about living back here again, about what a nicer place it is to socialize and date. 'But people are so passive-agressive here,' they say. They are certain things must be better in New York just as New Yorkers are certain it must be better elsewhere, say Seattle or San Francisco or whatever their dream 'exit strategy' city is. 

When you live in a vibrant city (as both Seattle and New York are in their ways) it always seems like it should be easier to go an find something really fun to do with like-minded youngish people. And yet it seems elusive; every once in a while you will be having a blast somewhere and you'll think 'why can't it always be this way?'. This was no less true in New York despite the approximate jillion bars, nightclubs and other boites on offer. You were always moving on to the new and the next, only to find the same old, same old but with different decor. The same jaded party people just moved around the city from place to place like persnickety hermit crabs. I remember some wonderfully fun places in New York; but the good times never seemed to last. One week you'd go and it'd be great and the next it would just have inexplicably changed. 

Seems like everyone wants the same thing: a place somehow relaxed and exciting at the same time, someplace where half the people are new and the other half know you by name. Doesn't seem like it should be so hard, right?

So my real question is, where's the party at?