When chocolate isn't enough: how to add love to your life

REVIEWS BY LINDA STANKARD

No special someone to celebrate with this year? Don't worry: even if you haven't found your soul mate by Valentine's Day, there will still be 320 days left in 2005 to enjoy meeting new people. Here are three terrific guides to dating the best, brightest and most dateworthy of them.

Dateworthy: Get the Relationship You Want, by Dennie Hughes, author of USA Weekend's RelationTips column, begins with a section designed to determine your own dateworthiness—a "Check Yourself Check-Up" and a process for leaving bad baggage behind. Hughes illustrates her points throughout the book with a "Dating Story" from her own life, and she doesn't shy away from the tales with unsavory endings either. This is someone who has been there, done that, messed up and lived to go out again on many wonderful dates. Her chapter titles include, "The Good, The Bad and the Salvageable," "The Ten First-Date Commandments" and "The Exclusive on Exclusivity."

Alternately serious and funny, Hughes offers useful pointers such as, "Just because you spent one of the most amazing hours with someone doesn't mean you know him," and "You're less likely to lose control if you're sporting control tops." Her comprehensive take on modern relationships is a great guide to finding your perfect match, or to smoothing out the rough spots in your current relationship.


A literary path to love

Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, by Lauren Henderson, offers an Englishwoman in America's perspective on love. When Henderson moved to the States several years ago, her new friends gave her advice about how to play the dating game here—advice like, "Don't call men back for at least three days! Five is ideal!" About to lose someone she was genuinely interested in, she abandoned the advice being given to her and turned to the wisdom on dating and relationships found in the novels of English author Jane Austen. Henderson came up with 10 rules inspired by the romances of Austen's characters and applied Rule No. 1 (very satisfactorily) to her own situation: "If you like someone, make it clear that you do." She writes: "Austen repeatedly emphasizes the opinion that a woman who likes a man should make her preference for him clear—without, naturally, going overboard." This guideline came from Catherine Morland's successful pursuit of Henry Tilney in Northanger Abby, and the rest of the 10 common-sense rules cite characters and events from Austen's other novels that back them up. It's interesting to see how 19th-century writing can inform 21st-century relationships.

Part of the fun of this book is taking the quizzes, "Which Jane Austen Character Are You?" and "Which Jane Austen Character is the Man You Like?" There are book summaries for the Austen Uninitiated or to refresh your memory, and character descriptions so you can read about the character you are most like and the one you would likely like most.


Making a match

Dr. Neil Clark Warren, the founder of eHarmony.com, a popular dating website that's made many successful matches, has assembled his relationship advice in a new book. Like the eHarmony website, Falling in Love For All the Right Reasons: How to Find Your Soul Mate takes finding the right person very seriously, and sets marriage as the ultimate goal of any relationship. After more than 37 years as a psychotherapist (and even more years of marriage), Warren has identified 29 dimensions necessary to relationship success. Among these are family backgrounds, anger management, traditional versus nontraditional personalities, sexual passion, artistic passion and ambition.

One of the most striking aspects of Warren's approach is his belief that it's essential to match your partner on most, if not all of the 29 dimensions. He writes, "I must confess that I have never seen a great marriage in which the couple were not matched on at least twenty-five or twenty-six of the twenty-nine dimensions." In other words, opposites may attract, but finding someone who is a lot like you gives you a far better chance of building a lasting relationship. And Warren admits there is one more factor to consider besides the 29 dimensions—chemistry. "If the twenty-nine dimensions are the engine on which your marriage will travel long-term, chemistry is the key that will crank your motor and keep it going."


Be mine: a bittersweet Valentine treat

If you are anticipating the 14th of February with about as much eagerness as a visit from the Grim Reaper, I Hate Valentine's Day offers a hilarious antidote for the red-heart blues. Author Bennett Madison begins by lamenting the loss of innocent fun the holiday once brought in childhood when "at the end of the day, you had a box full of cards—one from each and every person in the class, including sworn enemies. That was the rule." He goes on to offer an adult guidebook for not only surviving the day, but enjoying it (albeit at times perversely), once more. "It will only take a small attitude adjustment," he quips, "a lot of quick thinking, and a few shots of Jack Daniels."

The eight brief chapters include "Emergency Dating," with tips on Internet resources, creative dating and people to avoid no matter how desperate you are for a date; "Hell Night," complete with a quick quiz to rate your romance quotient and some atypical ideas for where to go and what to do; and "Wallowing When All Else Fails," with lists of videos and songs sure to wring a good, cathartic, cry out of you. There's even a troubleshooting section to help out with any problems you might encounter on Valentine's Day, such as V-Day stalkers, unwanted proposals and bad hair/acne/mysterious rashes. Madison's funny take on the holiday is sure to keep your Valentine's Day expectations under control.


Linda Stankard writes from Nanuet, New York.

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