Moonlight walks at the beach.  Romantic dinners by candlelight.  Old movies.

You know the drill.

What does all that mushy stuff have to do with spreadsheets and math?  Everything.  If you’re serious about finding a partner through on-line services or speed dating events, you know you will have to sort through a LOT of profiles, not to mention first and second dates.  Who doesn’t like moonlit walks on the beach?  Keeping track of who said what, who has children, who likes dogs, and who reminds you of your ex can be exciting, but it can also be a big headache!

Then, when you get to the third and fourth dates with someone promising, there’s the problem of “good enough.”  You feel some attraction, and it appears to be mutual.  Your new flame doesn’t have the same problems that destroyed your last relationship.  But do you really want “not as bad as the last one?”  Have you caught yourself entertaining the thought that, “I can put up with this…” or “it really doesn’t matter that much about that…?”

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a way to understand, in the first few dates, before you start thinking about a future together, before you really fell in love?

As her marriage to Desi Arnaz came to an end, Lucille Ball wrote,

I realized we never really liked each other.  We had a great attraction going for each other in the beginning but we didn’t approve of each other.  He disapproved of my moderation and my conservatism.  I was square, he said.  I disapproved of the way he worked too hard, played too hard, and was never moderate in anything.  It was like living on the top of a volcano; you never knew when it would erupt or why.

From Love, Lucy, by Lucille Ball, p. 257.

Being able to evaluate potential love partners against a clearly defined list of relevant criteria is one of the easiest and best solutions to the problem of meeting a very attractive someone that you turn out not to like.  If you’ve ever recognized that sometimes, you’ve picked a partner who was the “next available,” or “better than the last one,” or “the exact opposite of the last one,” you might want to take some time this time to figure out what YOU really want, NOT what you (or the services, or your matchmaking buddies) “think you can get.”

The Love Calculator Toolkit is designed to solve exactly this problem–identifying what you want, including any show stoppers or deal breakers, and then providing you with a discrete way to evaluate potential partners against that list.  We’re not against romance.  We just don’t think you need to get your heart broken when you could have sidestepped the situation after the second or third date.

This isn’t a toy. The Love Calculator Toolkit uses plain old math; arithmetic, actually, to help you recognize people who aren’t right for you, and those who are. We’re not invoking the Dark Arts, or magic, or numerology. If astrology works for you, feel free to add “Scorpio sun, Libra moon.” But there’s no occult power in our system, just rational decision support. Love is mystery enough.

Now, we know love is more complicated than any checklist.  If a checklist alone–height, weight, age, race, hobbies–were enough, then the online systems would be able to drop the top five candidates right in your lap the first time you logged in, and they’d work.  The trouble is, everyone has a different list, and very few people are able to identify any more characteristics, at the get-go, than the dating service allows you to select.

What we do is help you create an image of your perfect partner, with as many details as you can identify.  “Tall dark and handsome” can be your starting point. Keep going.  What else do you need your partner to be?  If you have a few clearly identified “nots,” note them as well.  (One of our clients recognized her list was 80% “don’t wants,” which explained some of her results!)  There are no right or wrong answers here, and nothing is too trivial to matter.  If it matters to you, add it to your list.  The way the toolkit works will take care of “too trivial” for you, automatically.

When you’ve created an image of your ideal partner, you can look at profiles and first dates a little differently.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to gather data. We know a first date is not a job interview, and you don’t want to spend the time grilling your date about his or her financial history.  But most people will agree, dating IS work! The Love Calculator simply helps you evaluate prospective dates rationally, so you can free up your intuition for the times when that’s the right way to make a decision.

How does this work?

The Love Calculator Toolkit starts with an understanding of how your mind works.  You create a list of characteristics and criteria you want in a partner.  We’ll give you a list of possible characteristics, but these are only ideas suggested from our own and clients’ relationship experience.  Some people will create a list that uses none of the thought-starter characteristics, once they settle into the activity.  We provide a way for you to remember and review your criteria through the initial first few dates with someone you meet, whether through an online service, chance encounter, or being set up by friends.

Not convinced?  Run your dating history through the tool

One of our clients said, “Boy, that was a convincer!” after she used the Love Calculator to evaluate a few relationships from her past.  It was suddenly crystal clear why they didn’t work.  Not only that, but also, she could see how each failed for its own reasons.  One person was too short, and didn’t like dogs, although wicked smart. Over time, “smart” didn’t make up for not letting the dogs in the house. Another was unavailable on a number of fronts, although he was good-looking, educated, and rich.  But still–60% isn’t a pass in any class.

You’re scoring my dates?

No, the toolkit is.  For you.  All you have to do is talk, and lead the conversation around to topics that will let you learn how your date thinks about the issues that matter to you.  If you don’t know an answer, leave it blank.  If s/he really “has it in spades,” so to speak, score a 2.  “Solid meets,” as we used to say in corporate evals, a 1.  Not at all, 0.  (Note, that zero is different from blank, where blank means “don’t know yet.”)  And if s/he fails the criterion completely?  -1.

When a prospective partner’s score reaches 80 or higher, you can decide how or when to move forward.  We can’t promise that any two people will have the relationship skills to keep a partnership together.  Unfortunately, we also can’t promise that you will both score 80+ on each other’s list.  What we do know is that it’s really really hard to make it work with someone who DOESN’T meet your basic criteria, whose score stabilizes at less than 80%.

In either case, if you decide to move forward, you’ll be more clear in your mind about what you’re getting into.

From someone who used an early version of the tool in 1995 to find the partner she’s still with today:

I still talk about the list of traits I want in a man. I remember how amazed I was when I realized Mark (the previous boyfriend) really met most of the “fun” criteria, but was a total zero with the “responsible” traits. And, it’s help keep me positive during those (extremely) rare occasions when Jeff (life partner of 15+ years) is making me nuts because of one of the (very) few traits that he’s never had and probably never will get. I remind myself that yes, I could find someone who had that particular trait, but they’d be missing something else. Joanie D.

What’s in the Toolkit?

The package includes the Love Calculator tool itself, and instructions for how to use the tool.  which are planned to include audio files that explain:

• Mind models and why we keep dating the same person
• How we can step outside of dating the “next available” single person and identify what we really want in a love partner
• How to create the core content for an online dating site profile
• How to guide yourself through successful first dates that help you select an ideal love and life partner, without wasting time with people who can’t meet your needs.

For less than the price of one month’s membership in most of the online dating services, you can arm your heart with a tool that will free your intuition to make the decisions it makes best, by providing a rational explanation of which potential partners are or are not right for you.

Stomp Our Hearts Flat Guarantee: If the Love Calculator Toolkit doesn’t work for you in any way–

• If you discover you can’t stand to connect “romance” and “toolkit”, or if
• You don’t spare yourself at least one troublesome relationship

We’ll refund your money, no questions asked.
Try it for yourself, and see.
Love Calculator toolkit, $27.00