One rule to follow when dating, break your own rules

Lori Bizzoco went on a date with a man she met through Match.com, but when he called her to go on a second date, she never called him back because he didn't fit the rules she had set for herself: he was geographically unattractive since he lived outside the area she wanted; he was Italian, and while she was too, she didn't want to date someone with the same background; he was a chiropractor and she wanted a suit and tie guy; and finally, he lived in jeans and sneakers, but she wanted someone who dressed stylishly.

Three years after that first date, the man contacted Bizzoco again, and nine weeks after their second first date, they got engaged, all because Bizzoco threw out her rules.

Bizzoco, the New York-based founder of the website www.cupidspulse.com, has been married to that man for three years now, and advocates having standards, but throwing your rules out the window.

With today marking the start of Unmarried and Single Americans week, it's safe to assume that of the 96.6 million unmarried Americans 18 and older in 2009, at least some are looking for love, and letting their rules guide their search.

According to www.census.gov, there were 904 dating service establishments nationwide as of 2002, generating $489 million in revenues and employing nearly 4,300 people including romance coaches and dating experts from across the country who said they've seen and heard it all, ranging from the superficial to just plain silly.

"I've heard one that if you're looking at a scale of 1 to 10, to go for the 7 or 8, because the 10 is dangerous," Bizzoco said.

Kathryn Lord, a psychotherapist and romance coach from Florida, has seen that the rules people set to guide themselves, actually restrict them. For example, women who specify men must be over 6 feet tall eliminate 85 percent of men, or men who want women size 8 or less narrow their search substantially with the average dress size for women being 14.

"The most insidious rule I run into constantly is women who insist on waiting until men contact them first, citing 'the Rules' by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. While this "rule" may work for women who are younger than 35 and gorgeous, it works less and less well as women get older," Lord said in an e-mail. "Each restriction restricts, eliminates a percentage of good candidates base on an arbitrary characteristic."

Dr. Karin Anderson, Associate professor of psychology and counselor education at Concordia University Chicago and the author of "It Just Hasn't Happened Yet," said rules can ultimately boil down to control. While you may be able to control certain aspects of your life such as your job, and research and analyze your way through problems, taking on love is a whole different ballgame.

"Love's not that simple," she said. "You can't analyze love into a solution ... and you're taking away your neural energy away from something else."