Dating do's

Kendel McCarley is looking for love.

Serious love.

But the prospects for romance in this 40-year-old single dad's daily routine are pretty abysmal.

He doesn't have any hobbies conducive to meeting single women. His church's congregation has only one single woman his age.

And he doesn't swagger through the bar scene on Friday nights. "That's just a hook-up thing," he says.

What's a guy to do?

For one thing, he can flip on his computer.

Over the past few years — when he wasn't in a relationship — McCarley has gone online to instantly expand his social network.

Internet dating is just one way singletons are trying to meet one another in Tucson, which is sometimes described as a small, perhaps impossible place to find potential dates.

"It's all a numbers game," he said.

He's onto something, says clinical psychologist Joy Browne.

She wrote "Dating for Dummies" (For Dummies, $21.99) and dishes out relationship advice on her nationally syndicated radio show.

This week is National Singles Week, a nod to the 96 million Americans who are unattached. Whether you're celebrating your independence or mourning it, we've solicited Browne's tips for dating and scoured the meet market in the Old Pueblo for a few reliable methods and rules for making a real connection.

So put down your drink, toss out your doubt that Mr. or Ms. Right will ever materialize, and read on.

Rule No. 1: Get out there.

"You wouldn't find a job if you didn't send out your résumé. You are your own résumé when it comes to dating," Browne said.

It seems obvious, but the key is to continuously expand your circle of friends.

Browne's listeners repeatedly complain that they can't meet anyone, but when she asks them what they do at night, they're mostly at home.

This just won't suffice, she says. Join an activity group, take tennis lessons, go to dinner — put yourself, literally, out there in the world.

If you don't have the time to physically be out in the world where potential mates are lurking, put yourself out in the virtual world by creating a profile on an online dating service.

The evidence: McCarley has met several matches, including his last serious girlfriend, on match.com.

The couple broke up when she moved across the country, but both are back online looking for potential dates.

It's easy to become jaded, he said, but he's giving it another shot.

"I hope to find a great gal that's staying in town. I had a great gal, but you can't do that thousands of miles away," he said.

More evidence: McCarley's good experience inspired his friends to get on match.com.

Nicole Gerardo, 31, joined after her co-worker met McCarley and hit it off. A few weeks later she met Joshua Oster-Morris, 29, who is now her fiance. The two e-mailed each other for weeks and eventually had a real date.

"It was such a great opportunity to meet people outside my circle of academics," said Gerardo, who's a post-doctoral researcher in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona.

Oster-Morris, who met his previous long-term girlfriend on Yahoo personals, says online is the best place to go for dating.

Even though he's social, talkative and outgoing, he still finds it incredibly awkward to approach a woman at a gathering and chat her up.

"You could meet somebody in yoga class or something, but it's like window shopping. It's nice to see, but it offers no benefits because you're not interacting with one another," he said.

Gerardo agrees. She's shy and doesn't like to meet people in a bar or party setting, but she's very good at establishing relationships.

Their match.com profiles provided mini-Cliffs Notes for breaking the ice, and their e-mail exchanges were like mini-dates.

"On our first date I felt like I already knew him," Gerardo said. "And we were able to have a real date on our first date."

Their best advice for singles: Take the time to get to know someone you meet online before going on a date. It's easier to talk with someone via e-mail. If it doesn't work out, it's also easier to dump them.

"There aren't any expectations this way, and there's no motivation for someone to lie to you about themselves over e-mail."

Rule No. 2: Know thyself.

Knowing what you want is crucial, Browne says.

The evidence: Ralph Renger had a Tucson version of the "Sleepless in Seattle" moment.

Renger, a 45-year-old single dad, was featured in an Arizona Daily Star article last year about parents preparing healthy meals for children.

The article mentioned that he was an associate professor at the University of Arizona, so in the week after the story ran, more than 15 women tracked him down and sent e-mails. He received several more offers to be set up from friends and co-workers at the UA.

Even though he was flattered and went on dates with several of the women, he could narrow the field because he knows he's most likely to connect with a single mom who knows firsthand what his life is like.

"The number one thing now is that I need someone that understands the situation. It sounds so simple, but it is easier for a mom with kids to get it."

Rule No. 3: Take dating less seriously.

Go on dates for the sake of going on dates. It's great practice, Browne says, to meet someone, online or otherwise, and go have brunch or play tennis. "It's reminding yourself how to be attractive. It takes you off house arrest."

The evidence: McCarley doesn't initially commit to a full-fledged date. He calls the first interaction with a potential date "the interview."

He checks to see if the person matches her profile and hopes for a connection. If he finds one, then he makes arrangements to meet again or continue the date that night.

The first encounter is just a test, for you and for your potential match.

"Getting back in the habit of dating lightens you up and reminds you how to be attractive and charming," Browne said.

So even if you know the person you meet isn't the one, go anyway.

Rule No. 4: Don't look too hard.

The old cliché that you always find someone when you're not really looking isn't really true, Browne says, but "it's shorthand for saying that desperation isn't very attractive."

If you get jaded, cynical or downright depressed with the local dating scene, you're not attractive.

Cheer up and get out of the house.

"When you go to a party and you see someone in the corner staring at their navel, you're gonna avoid that person like the plague. The people who are happy and welcoming, man, they're just really seductive," Browne said.

The evidence: Darcy McCue, 44, dated throughout her 20s. In her 30s the bar scene stopped cutting it. She wanted to meet someone who shared her passion for fitness and with whom she could start a family, so she joined the Southern Arizona Roadrunners.

"I found the running group to be a mecca of cute and interesting potentials in running shorts. Of course, it helped that I, too, was a runner," said the Canyon Ranch fitness instructor.

Around the same time, Bob McCue, who's now her husband, joined the group "not to meet women, but to hammer out miles."

Darcy was getting a master's degree at the University of Phoenix at the time and needed help with a finance class. Bob had an MBA.

They were also both training for a marathon.

The two spent time crunching numbers, e-mailing and running together for three months before their first date.

"It wasn't as though we met and immediately said, 'You're the one for me,' " Darcy said. Instead, they found more and more common interests and let the relationship develop slowly. Neither was desperate to date or settle down.

They have two kids now and take them running in a double jog stroller once a week.

Their advice to others: "Narrow down the three things you really enjoy doing and find a social function related to it," Bob said. "Even if it's reading, go find a book club."

Their common interests are anchors in their relationship, and they've created a lifestyle of fitness and family for which they were both looking.

Rule No. 5: Learn to like yourself single.

"Finding the right one is being the right one," Browne said.

She calls it the country-Western trinity.

"I want you — that's great, that's sex and it's healthy. I love you — well that's good, too. I need you — very bad idea."

The need to be with someone will make you do things you wouldn't do if you didn't need them, Browne said.

"If you're dying of thirst in the desert, you'll drink brackish water that's not good for you."

Don't allow yourself to settle for toxic partners just so you'll have one.

Confidence is key, and the best way to get it is to do the things that make you happy.

She told a listener who was searching for a mate to get busy living her own life. "I said, 'If you knew that 10 years from today you're going to find somebody perfect for you and have a great life, giggle, have great sex and be incredibly happy, could you find things to do now to make your life work for you for the next 10 years?' She said, 'Yeah.' Then do that."

The evidence: Renger, the single dad who met several women after being featured in the newspaper, embraces a Hawaiian concept called Pono for dating. Its most basic translation means righteousness, and Renger applies it to being right with yourself before you look for someone else.

"I had to get right with myself, my career, my relationship with my daughter. Get your own house in order first," Renger said.

In other words, he's happy just the way he is. Meeting a great woman is icing on the cake.

The bottom line

Like McCarley said, dating is a numbers game. Whether you want to tell yourself there are plenty of proverbial fish in the sea or frogs that need kissing, the bottom line is you can't win if you don't play. And your chances of finding Mr. or Ms. Right are a lot better than winning the lottery.

You just have to keep up the game — McCarley is, online. And Renger's building his dating network through word of mouth.

Whichever way you choose to go about it, "being patient," Browne says, "makes a huge amount of sense."

You may even hit the jackpot.