Without the latest statistics in front of me, I'm guessing the divorce rate in this country is still about fifty percent. One in two marriages last until one partner or the other dies of old age. So the statistics for a dating relationship even making it to the altar in the first place must be pretty scary!

The whole point of dating is to find Mr. or Ms. Right - the person who, sixty years from now, you want to sit next to on the sofa and still hold hands with. Unfortunately, as my grandmother says, "You've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find that prince."

So how do you buck the terrible odds and kiss a lot less frogs? By honestly answering these questions:

Are you comfortable spending time by yourself? A person who's ready to be in a relationship is comfortable with who he or she already is. Do you already strike a balance between spending time with friends on Saturday and spending time by yourself on Sunday? And by "time" I don't mean an hour spent alone getting ready to go out with people. I mean quality time alone in a park, or a museum, or just sitting at home reading a good book (NOT chatting on the Internet or watching TV!).

The goal of spending time by yourself is to build mental and emotional self-reliance and, ultimately, to become your own best friend. Only then will you have the emotional resources to intimately share your life with someone on a long-term basis.

Do you like yourself? One of my favorite musicals of all time is RENT. And one of my favorite lines from the show is, "You'll never share real love until you love yourself," because it's so true. If you don't like yourself, if your self-esteem is in the toilet and sinking fast, it's natural to try to find someone else to make you feel better about yourself: "Hey! He likes me! I must be an okay person."

Finding someone else to boost your self-image is the worst possible thing you can do.

Let me illustrate this point in a way I hope you don't ever forget: After my first husband David and I separated, I felt pretty unlovable. Unworthy of happiness. After all, I'd just help screw up a fairy-tale high school romance and happily-ever-after marriage which apparently wasn't so happily-ever-after after all. To say my self-image was digging its own hole to China (and succeeding) is an understatement. Right in the middle of this, I met Vincent. He was attracted to my low self-esteem because he could exploit it to convince me that all the physical, verbal, sexual and emotional abuse (not to mention witnessing his own drug and alcohol abuse) he put me through was all my fault. And boy, did I believe him. For two and a half painful years, I believed him.

Abusers like people who don't like themselves - they're such fun to play with!

Have you ever lived alone? So many of us go from living at home with our parents to living with college roommates to living with a significant other, to living with several significant others in succession that we don't know how to live by and with ourselves. This relates back to question number one, above. Living alone forces us to sometimes be alone - even when we'd rather not. Like at two o'clock in the morning with a tornado warning in the area and you discover your cat has just died.

Living alone also forces you to become a responsible, self-reliant person. In other words, a grown-up. Bills have to be paid on time, the toilet has to be unstopped, and trash has to be taken out - and there's no one else around to do these things but you.

Hint: people who make the best candidates for a stable long-term relationship are grown-ups. And they're going to limit their search for Mr. or Ms. Forever to people they can tell are fellow grown-ups. I'm just sayin'.

Are you solidly on a career path or slumming at McDonald's, and then Wendy's, and then Burger Barn? You may be the best hamburger assembler on the planet, but if you're switching crappy jobs every six weeks, people looking for a long-term romance are going to pass you over in favor of some nerdy English major every time. Why? The English major has the potential for financial and employment stability, and you do not. Think really hard about going to school, even if it's one or two classes at a time. Self-improvement builds self-esteem. Self-esteem builds healthy, long-term relationships. Trust me, I know this one from experience.

Of course, if you're an English major working your way through school by asking, "do you want fries with that?", well, that's different. And good for you!

Are you emotionally mature enough? You pay your bills on time, have a spotless refrigerator and can wash a car with the best of them, but every time you get into a relationship you're calling his or her cell phone every half hour on the half hour "just because I need to." If something bad happens to you at work, it's never your fault. Come to think of it, none of your past break-ups were in any way your fault, either!

Grow up. And think. You probably don't want to spend the rest of your life with some clingy, needy, immature, whiny person who never acknowledges his or her own errors and who never makes amends when something goes wrong. That wouldn't be very much fun, right? Well, guess what? If you're like that yourself - and be honest, you could be and not even know it - no one is going to want to spend the rest of his or her life with you.

If you honestly answered "yes" to the above questions, then don't worry. Mr. or Ms. Right is probably on their way to you right now. If you answered "no", and you're sick and tired of being sick and tired of being alone, I humbly suggest you embark on an adventure of self-discover and self-improvement. What can I say? It works!

Besides, what have you got to lose?