Unfortunately, this ineffable quality, this "lightness," is difficult to conjure or to fake. If dating is something that's stressful to you, and if you're frustrated with your current romantic status, it's hard to just decide to not worry about it so much. "It will happen when you least expect it" is perhaps the most infuriating thing a single woman who is tired of being single can hear, because, at that point, you're never not expecting it. You walk into a party and you hope for it; you scan the room looking for it; say you start talking to a guy and, despite all logic or attempts at restraint, you find yourself thinking, Is this it? Is it him? Is this finally it? When you want something badly, it's hard not to take it seriously.

But what the phrase "It will happen when you least expect it" really means is, "It will happen when you just stop worrying about it." It will happen when you let your guard down for a second, when you're thinking about something else, when for a moment all the stress and frustration and heaviness part like clouds, and some guy gets a glimpse of the real you that's been hiding underneath. I promise that's the corniest thing you'll read in this book, but it's true, it's true, it's true. It might not be immediate, but once you stop stressing, at some point it will happen.

It's the exact same reason that sometimes "breaking the seal" after a dry spell will usher in a glorious era of promiscuity, and why sometimes you start getting hit on by everyone the second you get into a relationship. In college, I noticed I had an excellent track record of getting asked out at parties-- but it only happened when I had a crush on someone else. I'd be so busy scanning the room for the object of my affection and concentrating my (probably intense, probably creepy) thoughts on him that I could be completely light and relaxed and natural with whatever guy I was engaged in conversation with. When, at the end of the night, he'd ask for my number, I was always delightedly caught off-guard. "Was that romantic? But I wasn't even thinking about it! I wasn't even worrying about what was coming out of my mouth, and whether it was attractive or funny or flirty!" But that's what people are attracted to: someone who's confident and relaxed.

On dating profiles at How About We, where I work, we ask people to finish the sentence "I want to be with someone who wants to be ____." The most common answer is overwhelmingly: happy. People want to be with people who are happy. It's what they're looking for when they meet people at a party or on a first date, even more than good looks or funny jokes or a smooth, alluring flirtation. People want to be with someone happy, because if you're with someone happy, then maybe you can be happy, too.

You have to figure out a way to be happy without a partner, without a date, without sex, without a response to that text or a "like" on a Facebook picture or a flirty exchange on GChat. Because the sooner you lower the stakes on all that, the easier it will be for you to attain. I promise. A guy who's moping around, who's given up dating as "hopeless," who thinks all the girls in his city "suck" or are "taken already," is simply going to have a much, much harder time finding someone. No one wants to be with that guy.