Huffington Post shares with us the disappointment felt by one female blogger with OKCupid. She even draws a circle, and it’s that circle we’d like to break. The cycle repeats: lonely, try dating, meet nobody who’s any good, get fed up, retreat, repeat.

Here’s the thing: If you, too, try to do all of your dating in clumps like that, you’re setting yourself up to fail. You don’t just go shopping and look at all the people one day out of the month. Seeking a life partner should instead be something you’re always doing “ambiently”. Passively. In no hurry, but never quitting either.

If you go through this cycle as illustrated there, the lonely period of complete abstinence makes you desperate. The desperation drives you to make poor judgements as you rush out to find men, any men at all. Any men at all are usually low-quality guys you dug up in a hurry, so they’ll all be flops. The flops burn you out in a hurry and make you jaded and cynical – and then you retreat into your hermit shell! Now, how is a decent man ever going to find you if he not only has to seek you out, but catch you at the right time when you’re “accepting application”? You have to apply a little Zen here to see that trying too hard dooms you to fail.