The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: Opinions

KARLA ZIENTOWSKI

Gazing at the magazines in the grocery checkout line, I came to an earth-shattering realization.

The bane of my existence depends on finding the perfect guy, dating him and taking magazine quizzes to assure myself that I am, indeed, in love with Prince Charming himself.

Everywhere I look, I am bombarded with advice and tips on how to land the man of my dreams. There are plenty of television shows, news stories, magazines and self-help books devoted to helping us women decide who and how we should date.

Excellent. Now I can spend $20 on a book to find out the difference between a jerk and a nice guy. No offense, but if you have to consult a book to reassure yourself that he's the one, I'm not so sure he's your knight in shining armor.

Why not trust your instincts? Our ancestors did. Nobody handed them pretty little books with guidelines, glossy pages and quizzes to see if their relationship was a match made in heaven. The only matches they concerned themselves with were those used to start fires.

But thanks to technology, we no longer have to spend our days slaving over a hot fire or hunting all day for dinner. Now that we have the time and luxury to reproduce out of love, we have turned what was once an emotion, perhaps even a state of being, into a science. Love is no longer an enjoyable experience. Instead, we have managed to break it down into a science consisting of equations, theories and statistics.

In fact, now you can calculate your compatibility simply by adding up the numbers of your birthday, multiplying them by the number of letters in his mother's maiden name and dividing that number by the number of letters in the month in which you two met. Only once you have completed this daunting task will you be able to tell if he's the one.

If that doesn't work, or if you are too thrifty to spend $4.50 on a magazine stocked full of quizzes, you can always get away cheap by sending a text message of your name and his to 555-LOVE on television to see if you are a true match. This is probably your surest bet seeing as how if it's on television it must be true.

Then, of course, there are those who can afford to drop double digits to discover whether or not their date is the ideal mate. We have all heard of the book "He's Just Not That Into You," and if you haven't, your actions probably have been analyzed thoroughly by someone who has read it.

Yes, I will admit I read parts of the book while wandering around Borders one afternoon. But, too cheap and too stubborn to spend $15 to be told I'm not wanted, I merely glanced at some of the letters featured in the book.

Every letter had a common theme: The man stopped paying the woman any attention and she had no idea as to why. So instead of putting themselves in the men's shoes and asking themselves why they start ignoring a man, they made up four million excuses as to why he suddenly fell off the face of the earth.

After spending 20 minutes reading stories, some similar to my own experiences, I walked away with what Oprah and millions of women across America deemed a genius epiphany: If he ignores you, he does not like you.

What insight. I don't think I could ever have figured that out on my own, and the best part was that I didn't even have to buy the book to be let in on love's biggest secret.

Well, here's the real secret: Don't fall victim to the quizzes, tips and dating rules - half of which probably are written by divorcees, senior citizens and individuals from another generation. Trust yourself, not some 40-year-old editor who publishes an article on dating college men. I fail to see how he could possess an adequate understanding of such a subject, unless he is currently in college or dating college men, in which case his dating style might differ a tad from yours.

You do not have to date someone in order to validate your existence, even though looking at a magazine rack in the grocery store checkout line tells you otherwise.

And if you are dating someone, don't examine your relationship under a microscope. Love is not something to be examined or sought after, rather it is something that sneaks up on you and is meant to be enjoyed. Nor is love a science - there is no equation for the perfect relationship. You're not perfect and he's not perfect, so don't expect a fairy tale, by-the-book, sugar-coated relationship.

Trust your gut. If, when together, you always have fun, then he might be the one. But if you need reassurance from a book, you might want to give your relationship another look.

- Karla Zientowski is a senior from Stone Mountain majoring in publication management and international affairs.