The Mate Map: The Right Tool for Choosing the Right Mate

by Steven Sacks

Offers a systematic plan for selecting an appropriate mate based on essential principles and attributes, including personality, magnetism, and love.

245 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2002

Reviews

[Douglas Lord]

Finding that people rely too much on their gut when choosing significant others, Sacks developed the Mate Map, a structured tool for assessing potential partners, when he was having romantic troubles of his own. Amid some fairly generic overarching guidelines, three "relationship essentials" govern the method: magnetism, love, and personality fit. That last, interesting component comprises profile attributes (such as age, ethnicity, and education) and many spectrum attributes (calm/hotheaded, energetic/mellow, etc.) that help identify attractive qualities. Attributes are scored on a sliding scale, and potential mates rack up points. Illustrative, informative, and not as rigid or wacky as it sounds, Mate Map will at least encourage readers to be a bit more "heads up" when shopping around. More helpful than Laura Doyle's The Surrendered Single: A Practical Guide to Attracting and Marrying the Man Who's Right for You, which makes landing a man feel like roping a bull, Sacks's work stands as an analytical version of Barbara DeAngelis's Are You the One for Me?: Knowing Who's Right and Avoiding Who's Wrong?

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