Find out early, before your heart gets broken
Moonlight walks at the beach. Romantic dinners by candlelight. Old movies.
You know the drill.
What do calculations, odds, and spreadsheets have to do with finding love? Everything, if you are someone who can take advantage of tools. 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 people and profiles. 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 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 predict the outcome of a possible relationship, 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.
So, how do you decide whether a new date is someone you really like, or merely someone who’s attractive? For lasting love, you want your partner to be both attractive, and someone you like. If you’ve ever 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, rather than what you (or the dating 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 of 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 characteristics or criteria 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. 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 lots of new people IS work! Your part of the work is to let your head collect the data you need to make an informed decision, while your heart makes its observations. The Love Calculator then helps you evaluate prospective dates rationally, so you can free up your intuition to listen for the magic and heart connection.
How does this work?
The Love Calculator Toolkit starts with an understanding of how your mind works–that it is easier to attract something, or someone, when you can be clear about what you want. You create a list of characteristics and criteria you want in a partner. The Toolkit provides 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. Then, the Toolkit provides a way for you to remember and review your criteria through the initial first few dates with someone you meet. The system works for in-person and virtual meetings, helping you keep track of people you meet 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. The way the Toolkit is set up, a “keeper” is someone who, in time, scores 80% or better. (People who struggle to find the “perfect” partner may find the Toolkit helps them understand how and where to compromise without “settling.”)
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. Valid scores for any one criterion range from 2 (EXACTLY! what you wanted) to -1 (the opposite of what you wanted–hates dogs, for example, is a -1 on my list). Zero is different from blank, where blank means “don’t know yet.”
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 score 80+ on your prospective partner’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.
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, or if
- You just aren’t ready to get really clear about the kind of partner you want to find,
We’ll refund your money, no questions asked.
Try it for yourself, and see.
Love Calculator toolkit, $27.00
Still not sure? Send me an email at karen at lovecalculatortoolkit dot com. Sincerely, Karen Tiede
What happens after you click on the “Add to Cart” PayPal button
- When you click on the Buy Now PayPal link, you’ll go to a new page on the PayPal.com site where you can login and purchase your Love Calculator Toolkit.
- Note the “https://” in the URL of PayPal’s site–the “s” means that is a secure site, and your payment information is safe.
- The PayPal Account shows as Red Tuxedo, which is the parent company of the Love Calculator Toolkit.
- On the PayPal confirmation page, you will see a link to a page on this site, LoveCalculatorToolkit.com, where you can immediately download the Toolkit.
- We do not ever see your PayPal or credit card information on the LoveCalculatorToolkit.com site.
If you have any questions, give me a call at 919/395-5148, or send an email to karen at lovecalculatortoolkit dot com. The phone’s answered during US EST business hours.