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I've discovered two important things this early Valentine's Day morning.
1. A search on Google for The Hopeful Romantic brings up my website first.
2. That Urban Dictionary has a pretty concise (and surprisingly SFW) definition of Hopeful Romantic.

Also, I've just sent in a request to Kickstarter to get a funding project started. I'm hoping to do some pretty exciting things on the self-publishing front (like a limited edition with hand-printed cover and hand-bound stitching, a companion book in the style of a choose-your-own adventure game about dating, etc). Keep your fingers crossed!

What Questions To Ask On A First Date

OkCupid strikes again with some great insights on which not-too-serious questions to ask on a first date. These seemingly unrelated questions can give you a better than average guess on other issues too taboo to bring up on a first date, such as sex, politics, and religion.

One of the questions I found surprising was about about spelling and grammar… apparently atheists and agnostics care an awful lot about correct use of the English language.

[OkCupid via BoingBoing]

The Decisions We Make

Whether we are conscious of our decisions or not (and why we make them), each and every thing we decide to do is because we believe that it will make us most happy.

-from Chapter 1 – Being Happy

[photo by Dragonleek]

Music: Thao Nguyen – Bag of Hammers

Musical inspiration for the moment as I start to edit the rough draft.

12 Anti-Rules For Love

Not to turn you on to my competition, but I’ve got to give some props to Mari Ruti and her book The Case for Falling In Love. I haven’t read it yet, but she seems to be covering some of the same themes that I am in The Hopeful Romantic. Here’s the first couple of the anti-rules.

1. Stop trying so hard.

Give up your efforts to force love into a self-help cast. It will never fit, no matter how much you struggle. The only thing you’ll achieve are blisters in your brain. And love is not a Rubik’s Cube either. You can’t solve its riddles by clicking the red, blue, green, yellow, etc., pieces neatly into place. You’ll only get blisters on your fingers. So give yourself the heavenly permission to let love do the heavy lifting all by itself. Not only will this feel great, but it will save you a fortune in therapist and manicure fees.

2. Stop being so cautious.

Love is one of those human experiences where caution is overrated. If you want to be safe, go shopping at Zara with your best friend. The worst that can happen to you there is that you won’t be able to resist the adorable little black dress on sale. But when it comes to love, don’t expect caution to get you anywhere. Applying caution to love is like driving uphill with your emergency brake on. You might be able to keep going for a while, but eventually, you’ll need to find a mechanic.

You can read all twelve at Jezebel.