Relationships

Candy hearts and fancy chocolate boxes are showing up in stores, which can mean only one thing: V-day is on its way, and singles everywhere are starting to panic.

Does that sound more than a little familiar? Well, it shouldn't. Sure, there are a lot of great things about spending Valentine's Day with someone special, but there are plenty of great things about going it alone, too. Being coupled up is overrated rated, because being single can be a blast. Here's why:

• You don't have to celebrate. No need to buy a fancy new outfit, splurge on an expensive dinner, or agonize over picking out the perfect gift. You can spend a quiet night in munching on comfort food and watching your favorite films on Netflix.

• You can go wild celebrating. Maybe you're not looking for a quiet night in or a romantic dinner. Maybe you're looking for something a little less...restrained. Go out, dance 'till you drop, flirt with a sexy stranger, steal a late-night kiss and fall asleep with your clothes on. Who's going to judge you?

• Maintenance time is minimal. No need to shave your legs, your beard, or anything else. No need to spend hours straightening your hair, painting your nails, or exfoliating every inch if your body. Enjoy the luxury of being able to spend the day au naturel.

• Flirting is just fine. Flirting is likely to get you in trouble any time a bf or gf catches your eye wandering, but you'll be in twice as deep if you do it on Valentine's Day. But thankfully you're single this year, so you can flirt with any lovely lady or gorgeous guy who comes your way.

• You don't have to make any compromises. He wants to see a comedy, you would prefer a drama. She wants Italian, you want Indian. As a single guy or gal, Valentine's Day is whatever you want it to be. You can pick the movie, you can pick the restaurant, and you don't have to share any of the chocolates.

And as fun as the single life can be, let's not forget the final perk of solo Valentine's Day:

• You might get struck by Cupid's arrow. What could be more romantic than meeting your future-sweetie on Valentine's Day? Hit up V-Day parties, other events, or the best bars in the local singles scene and start to mingle with attractive folks who are also celebrating the holiday unattached. Who knows where the night might take you?

If you're single and dating, you're bound to get rejected. It's all part of the process, but most of the time it's hard not to take it personally. And if you've been the dumpee in a past relationship it can really put you on the defensive.

So what can you do to overcome those lingering feelings of self-doubt that result from bad break-ups in your past? What can you do to move on with confidence? It's not always easy. The tendency is to ask yourself, "why did this happen? Is something wrong with me?" You likely take that rejection into new relationships - wondering what happened when a new love interest doesn't call you back after a whirlwind romance. You may think you're the problem - and that you'll never meet anyone who sticks around. This kind of thinking affects your ability to trust, which isn't good for future relationship potential. Following are a few techniques to help you stop taking it personally to heal and move forward.

Nurture yourself. If you're hurting, acknowledge it so you can heal. This is especially true if you've been in a long-term relationship that ended badly. Rejection hurts, so the quicker you understand and accept your pain the faster you can move on. Go out with friends, take a trip, meditate, or find other ways to nurture and heal yourself.

Understand what you've learned. In most relationships, there were signs along the way that might have pointed you to problems, whether it was a lack of communication, commitment issues, or a stream of misunderstandings. Ask yourself the hard questions. Did you put up walls or get defensive? Did your partner have issues with commitment or control? Were you open and honest with each other, or did you tend to hide your true feelings to guard your heart? Whatever the case, see what you can learn from the experience. This knowledge will help you in future relationships.

Don't throw yourself into a relationship. If you're dating, don't stop seeing other people just because you went on a date with someone you find attractive. Chemistry is great, but it isn't the only barometer of a new relationship's potential. Lasting love isn't the same as instant romance, so don't put all your eggs in one basket. Relationships that last require you to get to know each other. Continue dating other people so that you aren't so focused on an end result, and can really get to know each other first.

Take risks. It's important to continue dating after rejection. Not every date is right for you (in fact, most aren't) - so it's important to keep moving forward. Talk to the woman in line next to you, or the neighbor you see walking his dogs every evening. Exchange contact information. If it doesn't work out, there's no harm done and it's not your fault - on to the next.

The right person is closer with every rejection. With every relationship (and with every rejection), you're closer to meeting the right person for you. Each relationship teaches us something about ourselves, whether it ended well or not. This makes you stronger and more certain of what you do want in a relationship. And better able to recognize it when love is right in front of you.

We’ve all heard the cliche before - that someone’s significant other is their “best friend.” Well, what if it’s not a cliche? What if you really are searching for a new best friend, with whom you also happen to share chemistry? In that case, perhaps the best thing you could do for yourself is not just to practice small talk or find the best outfit to wear on a first date, but also make sure you’re a good friend.

Granted, the first step to starting a relationship is to “get your foot in the door” and make a good first impression, and that’s why we proofread our profiles and try to learn to control our nerves. But finding someone with whom you have chemistry is only the beginning; if you intend to spend your life or even a year with someone, there are all sorts of skills, like communication, that require consistent use.

The bad news is that these skills are harder to learn from reading one article; the good news is that we’ve been practicing them all our lives, in our relationships with friends and family. And there’s nothing wrong with evaluating yourself as a friend and making adjustments accordingly; it’s really a win-win for everyone.

For some reason, though, we’re discouraged from thinking of romantic relationships as being similar to the interactions we’ve had all our lives; fortunes have probably been made by “experts” who want to teach us how to interact with those we’re interested in, as though they’re other species or even aliens. In reality, these people are not alien beings; they’re humans, with personalities that might not always mesh easily with our own, but who we’re certainly capable of understanding.

So next time you’re thinking of brushing up your dating skills, remember that the “long haul” relationship requires a different kind of skill set, one that involves good communication, honesty, and patience. Even if it’s a skill set that isn’t used much on the first date, it’s a good strength to have waiting in the wings.

eHarmony promises to match singles with potential dates who are "prescreened for deep compatibility with you across 29 dimensions."

But what does that actually mean? How scientific are the algorithms that so many online dating dates claim can predict compatibility? Is a mathematical formula really capable of finding lasting love?

If you ask Eli J. Finkel and Benjamin R. Karney, psychologists and authors of a recent opinion piece on NYTimes.com, the answer is "no."

"It's hard to be certain, since the sites have not disclosed their algorithms," write Finkel and Karney, but "the past 80 years of scientific research about what makes people romantically compatible suggests that such sites are unlikely to do what they claim to do." Dating sites simply fail to collect adequate amounts of important information about their members, they say, and because what data they do gather is based on singles who have never met in person, dating sites are unable to predict how compatible two people will be when they actually do interact face-to-face.

The most telling signs of whether or not a relationship will succeed occur only after a couple has met - like communication patterns, problem-solving tendencies and sexual compatibility - and gotten to know each other. Those factors can't possibly be evaluated by an algorithm.

Dating sites also don't take into account the environment surrounding a potential relationship. Crucial factors like job loss, financial strain, infertility, and illness are completely ignored, despite the large influence they have on long-term compatibility. The information collected by online dating sites focuses instead on personal characteristics, which aren't negligible but only account for a small portion of what makes two people well suited for each other.

There's no doubt that "partners who are more similar to each other in certain ways will experience greater relationship satisfaction and stability relative to partners who are less similar," but online dating algorithms do not address those deep forms of similarity.

"Perhaps as a result," Finkel and Karney theorize, "these sites tend to emphasize similarity on psychological variables like personality (e.g., matching extroverts with extroverts and introverts with introverts) and attitudes (e.g., matching people who prefer Judd Apatow's movies to Woody Allen's with people who feel the same way)," forms of similarity that don't actually predict compatibility in a long-term relationship.

Online dating, the researchers conclude, is not any worse a method of meeting your match, but it also isn't any better than traditional methods. Choose your dates wisely, and don't choose your dating sites based on the promises of a magical algorithm.

I often talk about how important honesty is when it comes to starting a new relationship - because there’s always that point when the makeup comes off, when we let out the breath we were holding and our stomachs too, and just be ourselves - and why not begin with as clear a conscience as possible? More specifically, however, it’s important to be honest about two things - how things are, and how you want them to be.

When you’re filling out your online profile, it’s usually a good idea to talk about what you want to do in the future, in a positive way - skills you want to learn, date venues you want to visit, your dreams. It’s an easy way to bring a shining ray of positivity to your profile, and to avoid negativity when you feel like your day-to-day life isn’t worth writing home about. For example: yes, you might currently be watching the twelfth season of a reality show - but you can’t wait for spring so you can start up Ultimate Frisbee again!

But here’s the thing: in a relationship you’re together through the boring times as well as the exciting ones. Even if you have several fun and exciting date ideas, it’s possible to blow through them all in less than a year. And even though you might have several exciting long-term plans, massive life changes don’t happen overnight. Sometimes they get delayed. Life has its own plans.

So no, you don’t have to emphasize the boring side of your life on your profile - it can be inferred, because everyone (really, everyone) has one. Once you begin dating, however, it’s important to see if you’re compatible on nights in as well as adventures. Can you have a night in and watch TV together? Realistically, there will be many more of those in the future than picnics in the park or urban rock-climbing.

Most of us are keen to demonstrate on our profiles the many facets of our personalities. What we often fail to remember is that not all of them are exciting - but even the boring parts of our lives make up the total package. As you head out on dates, testing your chemistry, remember to be honest about who you are in addition to who you’d like to be.

Admit it: you have a list.

You know the list I'm talking about. The one that goes something like this:

• Attractive

• Tall

• Blonde hair

• Financially stable

• Funny

• Etc...

Almost everyone has a list of what they're looking for in a partner. For some it's mental, for some it's on paper, for some it's typed into an online dating profile. But whatever format you've chosen for your list, it has something in common with everyone else's lists: it may be holding you back. When you get right down to it, what is your list? It's just a series of adjectives, adjectives that tell you almost nothing about who a person is and whether or not they'll be compatible with you.

But when you dig deeper, and start thinking about the kind of relationship that will fulfill you and the kind of partner who will make you happy, you can take that series of meaningless adjectives and turn it into something that's actually useful.

You've probably heard a lot about what you "deserve" in a relationship. You've read dating advice from relationship gurus who say that you should be picky because you deserve to have a partner who's perfect for you. They tell you that you should never settle for less than what you need and want.

And most of that is true...except that being "picky" rarely leads to happiness. "Picky" means being irrationally selective. Picky means focusing on minute details that rarely have any effect on the quality of a relationship. Picky means rejecting a date because their hair is the wrong length or they forgot to open the door for you because they were nervous or they wore a color you can't stand. Picky means missed opportunities and lost connections because you're so obsessed with insignificant info that you can't see what a great partner someone might actually be.

Instead of being picky, be "discriminating." Discriminating means using good judgment to make a distinction or evaluate something. It's not concerned with trivialities - it's focused on what really counts. You are discriminating when you rule out a potential date because their goals do not align with yours, because they want the relationship to progress more quickly than you do, or because they dislike physical affection while you love it.

Next time you're thinking about your list, ask yourself a new question. The right question isn't "What do I want?" - it's "How do I want to feel?" Then translate those sensations and emotions into more observable qualities and actions that you can look for in a partner. A successful long-term relationship is based on character and behavior, and it takes more than a picky list of random adjectives to find that.