Total Quality Dating | page 1, 2, 3

But relationship writers warn us repeatedly against relying on "chemistry" and they champion a more professional approach. In fact, the authors of "Recruiting Love" even promise to turn the "search for love" into one "as manageable and as familiar as a job hunt," and to help us meet our "love goals" by guiding us through the process of meeting a mate as quickly, efficiently and painlessly as possible, with "effective strategies to organize the love search and cut down on wasted time." Of course, like all good corporate alarmists, these writers must convince us of the urgent need for a "paradigm shift" in our way of approaching the business of love before selling us on their fail-proof practical guides. While most of them freely admit that the methods outlined in their books might at first seem "crazy" ("The Rules"); "politically incorrect" ("The Art of War for Lovers") or "indeed humorous" ("Recruiting Love"), the writers admonish readers that anything short of slavish devotion to their guidelines will result in total failure and heartbreak. They cheerfully dispense bulletproof tips for better living through manipulation, gleefully peddling the notion that all our woes can be neatly excised with a simple attitude adjustment and a well-organized plan involving worksheets. Meanwhile they relentlessly stoke the same fears they pretend to allay, whipping readers into a frothy, frenzied fear of the unthinkable: winding up alone.

If dating books don't succeed in mirroring the reality of anyone living outside of a Todd Solondz film, they do reflect certain pervasive attitudes about love. Underneath the colorful anecdotes and pie-in-the-sky promises of instant success lurks a sad, quiet desperation and confusion. Whether they urge us to be manly and ladylike, letting biological determinism take its course (the "face it, men and women are different" approach), or exhort us to transform ourselves into terrifyingly cheerful, toothy singles on the prowl (the "you go get 'em!" approach), these writers make it safe to go back in the water by reducing "the search for love" to the sort of soulless, deadened, passionless but comfy experience we know as work.

They present our "ideal mate" as the ultimate brass ring -- a shiny souvenir from our pre-packaged, air-conditioned, fully insured field trips into the wilderness of love. In their zeal for helping readers "succeed," they benignly neglect to mention that finding love, no matter how much your mother insisted you shop around, will never be as easy as pushing your cart resolutely past aisle 10, where all the bastards are stocked. Because love does happen when you're not looking and it's exactly like getting hit by a bus. You either go to heaven or you spend the next six months in a body cast eating whipped shit through a straw.

I have a neighbor who loves to tell me about her "traditional rules for courtship." Every time I run into her, she tells me about a recent date that came to an abrupt end due to some flaw in protocol, some failure to conform to her rules that inevitably led to the untimely demise of the fledgling romance. One guy didn't get out of the car and walk her to the door after the first date; another committed the unspeakable offense of calling her on Friday to ask her out on Saturday. Neither was spared a swift and stern reprimand. Neither ever called her again.

Every time she tells me one of these stories, I want to shove her into her apartment and slap her until she hands over the stupid book -- because I know it's in there, dog-eared, highlighted and damn near memorized. I want to tell her there's nothing she can do about it. She's going to fall in love with people who don't love her back, she's going to get dumped without warning, she's going to obsess over the wrong people and not notice the right ones. Buses are going to sail past her, mow her down, fail to appear. It's going to hurt; but if it didn't, she'd never know what good felt like.

Because if you try to replace pain and wasted time with rules and pie-charts, suddenly the whole thing just won't seem worth the effort anymore.