If you want to enjoy a little ego deflation, try telling the incredibly nice, normal Canadian family who invited you to their Palm Springs vacation house for the weekend that the book you've been absorbed in all day is about landing a husband. (Did it help that they were all voracious readers of literate nonfiction and literary nonfiction? I did not. O, the humanity!)

At least I've evolved to making no excuses for my choice in reading material. I'm interested in understanding how I've failed in my past relationships because I want to stop doing that—or at least, to fail in new and different, preferably higher-level ways.

Like most books written for people who want to be (or stay) in long-term relationships, this is a book about becoming a better communicator. And like most methodologies for becoming a better communicator, this book advocates the same basic actions: gaining clarity around your wants and needs; learning to accept what is actually happening, rather than living in fantasy or regret; and above all, being kind—to yourself first, so that you can be kind to others.

Do I wish it had a title that made me cringe less? Or do I wish that I had evolved into being someone who could cringe less at the title? YES.

That, at least, is progress.