Efficient Love
Efficient Love™
I Had 1,200 First Dates So You Don’t Have To™
“I had 1,200 first dates” is the kind of sentence that makes reasonable people squint. It sounds like a brag. It sounds like a gimmick. And if I hadn’t lived it, I would probably doubt it too.
But here is the truth most people miss: I didn’t set out to have more dates – and I definitely didn’t set out to have more one-night stands. I was already going on too many dates that sounded good online and/or on the phone, but didn’t turn out to be compatible in real life.
And that incompatibility certainly wasn’t always “my decision.” Sometimes it didn’t fit for me. Sometimes it didn’t fit for her. And just as often, it didn’t fit for either of us once we were sitting across the table and the real humans showed up. The time cost was significant. The emotional cost was real. The disappointment was unfair to both people. Over time, that pattern creates something heavier than heartbreak. It creates quiet doubt. It erodes confidence. It makes you question your instincts. It makes you wonder whether you are the common denominator in the wrong way. It makes starting over feel exhausting.
I wasn’t looking for “more options.” I was trying to find a way to stop wasting good people’s time – including my own.
So I tried something that was unusual for the time. I built a simple webpage and called it NovelistSeeksHeroine.com. If you clicked through, you found the 28 attributes I believed mattered most for my personal long-term compatibility. The 28 attributes lived on the webpage. I listed the link to my website on my AOL profile and did the same to my Match.com profile, with the enticement on both saying something like, “Are you the Heroine this Novelist seeks? Find out by checking out my webpage NovelistSeeksHeroine.com.” I made a simple promise: “If you believe you match all 28 traits, write to me and include the traits your own Hero would need to match.”
That was it. I didn’t run ads. I didn’t buy traffic. The AOL profile and the very early days of Match.com profile were the only two intentional distribution channels. Everything else came from word-of-mouth and referrals – people telling other people, “You have to see this.” (As I recall, Match.com did not start until 1995 – a year after I started this Quest. They ended up giving me a free lifetime membership.)
I also included a line from my past that became an unexpected signal: I had worked for NASA as a physicist decades earlier. I was not a rocket scientist at that point. It was simply part of my history. Still, people loved the idea of a former NASA physicist trying to bring structure to love. The joke wrote itself.
I assumed the page might attract a few hundred visits.
Instead, it drew an estimated 2 million visitors (that was a huge number back in those days between 1994-2004.) That simple website ended up generating more than 15,000 responses from women who believed they might be my Heroine.
Here was the first hard lesson: many of those women were not describing who they actually were. They were describing who they wanted to be. They projected my 28 traits onto themselves because they liked the idea of being that woman. That was totaling my fault because each trait had an enticing and provocative adjective that apparently were adjectives that a lot of women wanted to have that described them. It was also my fault that, unintentionally, each trait was too ambiguous and subjective, making it too easy to misinterpret. It took time – and more first dates than I care to admit – to learn how to distinguish aspiration from embodiment. Between potential and pattern.
That is how I eventually went on 1,200 first dates over roughly ten years.
What 1,200 First Dates Actually Looked Like
Probably over two thirds of these first dates were face-to-face, in-real-life meetings. Many were short thirty-minute coffee dates designed intentionally as low-pressure chemistry checks. Some required long drives. When I was living in Dallas or Austin, Texas, a “quick visit” could mean several hours behind the wheel. Texas is one of those states where driving from one end to the other can take fifteen hours.
Later, when I was living directly on the beach at Clearwater Beach, Florida, the dynamic shifted when my profile picture changed to one taken of me on the balcony of my condo showing my 180° panoramic view of the Gulf of Mexico. Once the website showed that location, I remember receiving over one hundred emails almost immediately from women claiming to be perfect matches and eager to come “visit” for a first date.
More about that in the book…Hint: It was highly doubtful whether any of those were actually interested in me…except for one wonderful exception…
A significant portion of the 1,200 “first dates” were live video dates long before iPhones or FaceTime were even invented. These were scheduled only after substantive email exchanges suggested there might be mutual alignment across what eventually became the Six Lists – my three and her three. The email responses I was getting were so massive that I rarely, if ever, had a video call with someone I didn’t believe was a mutual match. I didn’t have the time. And, frankly, I got where I did not want to end up with strong mutual chemistry that would once again turn into another dead-end relationship. So for me, these live video dates were ones I considered to be genuine dates. In today’s world, 20+ years later, I certainly understand the perspective is different. However, back then, as today, most of you know how powerful online romantic relationships can become – even if you never meet.
Many of those video relationships were the virtual equivalent of a short coffee date. Chemistry, or the absence of it, can absolutely come across through live video if you are paying attention – even when their side of the video was only performative. Most ended politely. Others accelerated into in-person meetings. Some never became romantic but turned into lifelong friendships. Others began romantically and later evolved into meaningful friendships that still exist more than a quarter century later.
Many dozens of the 1,200 resulted in genuine, meaningful relationships that remain ongoing deep friendships decades later. Some never turned romantic. Some were romantic for a season. Some were among the most meaningful romantic relationships of my life. What mattered was that an honest and kind approach rarely burned bridges permanently, even when there were the usual breakup emotions.
Let’s Talk Honestly About Chemistry
Overwhelming, electrifying chemistry was not present on all 1,200 first dates. Not even close.
It was not always “chemistry at first sight.” Sometimes it built gradually. Out of 1,200 first dates, roughly 300 became second dates. In those 300, there was always at least some mutual spark.
But the kind of true, mutual, knock-your-socks-off physical and mental chemistry people imagine when they think of rare connection probably occurred for me maybe three or four dozen times. Of those, perhaps a Top Twenty stood distinctly above the rest.
Two – and almost three – of those Top Twenty were so powerfully and mutually magnetic that one breakup did not stick. In all cases, I knew it was a mistake. In one case, there were two reconciliations. In another, we lost count after more than half a dozen reconciliations. More than once one of us would say, “This doesn’t mean we’re getting back together again…” and we would both laugh at the absurdity of even trying to pretend that was true.
In both cases, there was eventually a final ending. Genuine irreconcilable differences rarely, if ever, become permanently unimportant. And yes, those detours delayed all of us in finding the right person for Ever After. But maybe, sometimes, that delay might, just maybe, be worth it.
More about all of that in the book…
During my own ten-year Odyssey, I often thought about Homer’s Odyssey. Ulysses spent twenty years trying to return home. Along the way, he was delayed not only by storms and monsters but by enchantment. Circe held him for a year. Calypso held him for seven. He was not forced to stay. He was seduced by something powerful enough to pause the Quest.
Massive mutual chemistry can feel like that enchantment.
The Three Lists
My original 28 traits were necessary but not sufficient. As my Methodology framework evolved, I realized compatibility lives in multiple dimensions.
- The Profound List – core character and values.
- The Profane List – explicit, genuine, comprehensive, nuanced and raw mutual sexual compatibility.
- The DIDO List – the thousands of day-in, day-out realities of shared life.
You have your three lists. They have their three lists. Together, that actually creates Six Lists per couple.
Here’s the important part you cannot miss: for each couple, six lists must be compatible. It’s not enough for her to be totally compatible with me – and it’s not enough for me to be totally compatible with her. This is probably one of the most important axioms to learn and live by. If you cheat, somebody’s not going to be happy, and it is probably going to be both of you.
(Hint: When these lists were discussed, the 15,000 and the 1,200 almost always guessed wrong when I asked which one was where all the deal killers lived.)
One of the great advantages of the Methodology is that you instantly have something meaningful to talk about without reverting to small talk. I usually began by focusing on the most interesting person at the meeting. Not me. I already knew all about me. I wanted to know all about her.
I might ask, “What are a couple of things that you left off your lists that you probably should have included if you wanted to make absolutely sure you ended up with the right guy?”
Or I would say, “I want you to actually end up with the very best match you can possibly have based on your three lists. That may or may not be me. We’ll find out sooner or later. For right now, out of all the traits on your lists, which ones have been the hardest to find a real match for?”
Those relationships often became the best first dates I ever had, even when her lists strayed far from who I was or what I wanted. What mattered most to me was that she left knowing herself more clearly and understanding her needs without manipulation or subterfuge on my part.
The book walks you step by step through building your own ThreeLists so you can apply this structure without spending ten years discovering it the hard way.
What Readers Experienced
While the site was active, thousands wrote to say the Methodology helped them get off the treadmill of endless sequential dating. Some reported engagements and marriages that emerged quickly because they addressed compatibility and incompatibility early instead of discovering them years later. At least one couple married within thirty days of meeting. More than twenty years later, they are still married.
Others wrote with harder stories. Some used the Methodology inside their marriages and uncovered irreconcilable differences that had always been there. Some of those marriages ended. That reality hit me hard and made it clear this was never a game.
A surprising number of readers, both men and women, wrote me about their focus was primarily on the Profane List because they were not seeking long-term partnership at all. They wanted extraordinary sexual compatibility with nuances and desires that ranged from one horizon to the other – all of it without commitment. Interestingly, some of those relationships later evolved into something deeper and probably meaningful for a very long term relationship as Profound and DIDO alignment emerged during quieter seasons together.
I also became aware that any structured system can be misused. Just as I relationshiped individuals with less than honest intentions in my own journey, I have no doubt that some may have used the Methodology manipulatively.
More about that in the book…
One of my genuine surprises, though it should not have been, was the significant correspondence from men and women in the gay community. The Methodology worked equally well there. Love, desire, compatibility, projection, and heartbreak are not confined to any single demographic.
The Ending of My Ten-Year Odyssey
Like Ulysses, I eventually found the home that was my Quest. My Novelist Seeks Heroine website completed its mission.
There was one and only one Heroine for me out of the 15,000, only one woman out of the 1,200, who I asked to marry me.
More than TWO DECADES later, we are still happily married…and still counting!
We continue pursuing our joint quest together: Make every single day and night Happily Here and Now so that they combine into a genuinely mutual Happily Ever After.
Join the Efficient Love™ Advance Reader Team
Efficient Love is currently about 80%-85% complete. If you want to help shape the final manuscript before publication, you are warmly invited to apply.
Apply to join the Efficient Love™ Advance Reader Team
PS: The original NovelistSeeksHeroine.com website still exists. I have the original code. It runs exactly as it did in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is not archived. It is not searchable. It is not indexed.
It is not publicly accessible. The site has been quietly restored — but access is restricted.
Only Efficient Love ARC Team Members receive the key to the Novelist Seeks Heroine website.
Inside are the original essays, compatibility lists, reader letters, and the full early framework that ultimately evolved into Efficient Love™.
Most of it has not been seen since before we were married. No public announcement. No search result. No reposting on social media.
Nota bene: right now, since I just put these 350+ pages back up, I have not had time to even look at most of the pages – let alone redact the embarrassing stuff.
If you just want some of the history of what happens when you expect a couple of hundred visitors, and 2 million folks show up, then check out PostScript down below.
If you want the private key to access it, join below.
Not Ready for ARC?
If you simply want updates – and access to something that has not been publicly available for over two decades – join below.
Thanks,
Robert
Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
Founder and Author, Five Year Life™ Series
44X Founder · Rocket Scientist ·
33K Compound Knowledgist™ ·
Chief Dragonslayer™ — Business & Love ·
Novelist Who Successfully Found His Heroine
P.S. — If you’ve ever wondered what 1,200 first dates, 15,000 serious relationships, and a decade-long personal quest actually produce — there’s a page on this site you probably shouldn’t miss. It’s the real backstory behind Efficient Love™ and the decade that made it possible. Some of it is embarrassing. All of it is true. And somewhere inside it is the methodology that led me to the one woman in 2 million who became my wife.
→ The Story Behind Novelist Seeks Heroine™
P.P.S. — The frameworks in these books didn’t come from research or theory. They came from something far harder to replicate: 33,000 deeply candid, one-on-one relationships — across business and love — with people who couldn’t see their own best path forward and were looking to me to help them find it. If you want to understand why these books are different from anything else you’ll find, that’s where the answer lives.
→ Compound Knowledge™ – What It Is and Why It Matters to You
P.P.P.S. — If you are a corporate buyer, HR leader, coach, or program director interested in bulk purchase or organizational use, contact: SpecialSales@FiveYearLife.com