[c#] How to Find Item in Dictionary Collection?

I have declared and populated the following collection.

protected static Dictionary<string, string> _tags;

Now I want to look locate a particular entry in the collection. I tried the following.

thisTag = _tags.FirstOrDefault(t => t.Key == tag);
if (thisTag != default(KeyValuePair<string, string>))
    ...

And I get the error:

Operator '!=' cannot be applied to operands of type 'System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair' and ''

Initially I attempted to compare the result to null, and I guess that's not supported with structs.

I would've thought that finding an item within a collection is a very trivial task. So how the heck to I determine if the item I'm looking for was found?

(Note: I'm using Dictionary because I want fast lookups. I know I can use Contains() to determine if the item is there. But that means a total of two lookups, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a fast lookup. I'll happily using a different collection if it can quickly lookup an item and I have a way to determine if it was successful.)

Of course, if you want to make sure it's in there otherwise fail then this works:

thisTag = _tags[key];

NOTE: This will fail if the key,value pair does not exists but sometimes that is exactly what you want. This way you can catch it and do something about the error. I would only do this if I am certain that the key,value pair is or should be in the dictionary and if not I want it to know about it via the throw.

It's possible to find the element in Dictionary collection by using ContainsKey or TryGetValue as follows:

class Program
{
    protected static Dictionary<string, string> _tags = new Dictionary<string,string>();

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string strValue;

        _tags.Add("101", "C#");
        _tags.Add("102", "ASP.NET");

        if (_tags.ContainsKey("101"))
        {
            strValue = _tags["101"];
            Console.WriteLine(strValue);
        }

        if (_tags.TryGetValue("101", out strValue))
        {
            Console.WriteLine(strValue);
        }
    }
}

Sometimes you still need to use FirstOrDefault if you have to do different tests. If the Key component of your dictionnary is nullable, you can do this:

thisTag = _tags.FirstOrDefault(t => t.Key.SubString(1,1) == 'a');
if(thisTag.Key != null) { ... }

Using FirstOrDefault, the returned KeyValuePair's key and value will both be null if no match is found.