Oh, ladies of Baltimore, I have much to report. First, a challenge: coin a term for the female equivalent of a "sausage fest." You know, like the scene at the Latin Palace last night. Mucho mujeres; un poquito hombres. But...yours truly did just fine. My dear lady friends thrust two (count them, two) eligible bachelors in my general direction.

In one corner, Captain America, a wounded Iraq veteran who owned two (count them, two) Camaros and a Mustang as a wild young man. He was all muscle, right-wing politics, and the sweetest laugh...

In the other corner, the Flying Dutchman, a Germanic braniac who danced like no one was watching (as the cliche goes) and whom I discovered was sipping MOJITOS halfway through the evening. So innocent, those Europeans.

I danced, I flirted, but then the FD starting talking books and films. I was smitten. Swimming with Dolphins (the Indian name of a new lady friend) said, "So you'll pick a man just because he can talk books?" Yes! Oh, hell yes! Even if the talk is of German literature that I've never read nor heard of. Each of us has a path that wends straight to our hearts. It doesn't have to be a logical route.

But, loyal reader, you're looking for advice. Well, not to get too Alfred Marshall on your a**, but what we have here is basically the law of supply and demand. We've been told that the more we're in demand, the more we're valued. Maybe. But chew on this: the greater the supply, the less value we attach to any one good. Ah, the delicious freedom from want of being able to pick and choose! Billions of materialists couldn't be completely wrong.