Today while I was at the gym, I was suddenly struck with amusement at the thought of how an outsider to our culture would see this.  Here is a room full of scantily attired people puffing and sweating as they work energetically to move plates of metal and run on spinning belts that take them nowhere.  I could just imagine a newcomer to Planet Earth stopping the nearest treadmill runner and asking them, "Don't you realize that you're going nowhere?"

Of course, the point of running on a treadmill isn't to get somewhere.  It's to improve fitness so that we stay healthy despite sedentary lives.

In some ways, I think that studying relationships and dating is a lot like running on a treadmill.  We can learn tons and tons about how to be more attractive, how to carry on a perfect conversation, and how to keep a relationship's fire burning, but we end up in the same place that we started: still single.

"But all these dating books and seminars and experts were supposed to get me a boyfriend!" comes the protest.

But learning about dating and relationships in isolation is just like running on the treadmill at the gym.  Unless you are out and about in real life, actually practicing what you've learned, you are not going to get anywhere.

That doesn't mean that all your research and study is going to waste.  Just as people have to go to school to become doctors or lawyers, so you are learning relationship skills that will serve you well in your future relationships.

I think that it's unfortunate that relationship skills are not taught in school; such skills are just as important for future happiness and success—if not more so—than knowing math and English.

Learn as much as you can about attraction, dating, and relationships, but realize that doing so won't automatically "get" you a man.  That isn't the point, anymore than running on a treadmill will help you reach a destination.

Instead, learn about dating and relationships to become a more fulfilled, healthy, and loving individual.  Do it to become irresistibly attractive in body, mind, and spirit.

But be careful to remember that such attractiveness is dependent on what you invest in yourself for your own sake, not for the sake of a man you hope to attract.

True attractiveness blooms naturally from a woman who is fulfilled, healthy, and loving for her own sake—not for the sake of a man.

So if you feel that sometimes you're spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, just remember that you are making progress.  You're investing in your own emotional fitness.