Dating for the Science Minded

I've decided that I may be a little too science minded to date. I operate by coming up with theories, testing them, and either deciding I'm right or moving on to new theories. This is, I've discovered, not how dating works at all. In dating you try something, and if it doesn't work you try the same thing over again. And in all probability most of the time things won't work. I need more positive reinforcement than that.

I want some easy to follow, concise instructions as to how to find a girlfriend.
1) Take to first impression beverages, if all goes well, move on to dinner.
2) Meet for sparkling conversation in the park followed by a trip to X21 Modern.
3) Stay in for a movie, moves are made, relationship becomes official.

Instead the equation seems to go: X + Y + random personality mismatch or early-bird other guy = no relationship. And since all dates are relatively the same, it becomes increasingly difficult to put myself through them in hopes of a different result.

Doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Don't do that.

And, when I can see a way to improve my chances, I bump up against the immutable laws of physics. In the case of my last two dates I would have been in the clear had I started dating them a month or so before I started dating them.

I just finished a gargantuan book on tape where the main characters achieved faster than light travel by having a sentient computer program that lives in the relationships between people wish their space craft in and out of existence.* It seems to me that faster than light travel, at least in this instance, works on roughly the same principle as dating. Regardless of how many times you've managed to not wish yourself someplace else, as long as you keep thinking positive thoughts and trying your best, eventually you'll wish yourself out of rush hour and into a relationship.

Now if I can figure out how to make a sentient computer program that lives in people's emotional attachments to each other I'll be all set.


* After I finished the book, Xenocide by Orson Scott Card, I discovered that it was in fact half a book. Yep, it was so long that he made it into two books. But I've given up on Mr. Card, and now I'm reading Youth in Revolt, the Journals of Nick Twisp by C.D. Payne. I unabashedly checked it out from the teen fiction aisle and enjoying it almost infinitely more than Xenocide.