Have you “had it” with looking for “the right person” to spend the rest “of” your life with? Are you tired of watching “American Idol” alone while your roommate goes to her boyfriend’s house to watch him play video games? Do you feel the sudden, inexplicable urge to buy a cat, or cats?

Then we’ve got the solution for you.

Welcome to the “First Annual Spring Guide to Finding Love for People Who Don’t Want to Die Alone.” Consider this handy article your first step to a life filled with the permanent enjoyment of temporary fulfillment.

(Cue the sad piano.)

It’s a fact of life. Every day in this country thousands of people die alone.

Let’s face it. Most of them deserve to.

If they were better people, they would have found someone. Clearly there was something massively wrong with them.

So say a team of scientists in silky pink smocks at the University of Romance in Loveland, Colo., who recently determined that most singles suffer from the same flaw that’s keeping our space shuttle grounded _ high standards.

The solution?

(Cue the “Deep Thoughts” music from “Saturday Night Live.”)

Guideline No. 1: Lower your standards

If modern intellectuals have taught us anything _ and they haven’t _ it’s that compromising your values is a surefire path to happiness. Remember how you wanted to be a baseball player as a kid? And now you work for a PR firm that does work with a minor league team? That worked out great. You’re as happy as Derek Jeter, right?

Take our advice. Don’t look for someone smarter than you _ look for someone who’s not stupid. Don’t look for someone ambitious _ look for someone who’s gunning straight for the middle and intends to stay there. Don’t look for your lifelong best friend _ look for someone you don’t mind seeing a movie with.

Marriages are built on such compromises. And even though I haven’t checked the statistics for the last 40 years, I’m pretty darn sure most marriages still turn out all right.

And that leads us to our next rule.

(Cue “Here Comes the Bride.”)

Guideline No. 2: Set an arbitrary age to get married by (and stick to it)

This guideline only SEEMS insane. Ignore the little voice in your head that says, “But what if you haven’t met the right person by then?” That little voice wants you to be single because that little voice eats the part of your brain that tries to think of pickup lines at bars. We hate that little voice.

Tell yourself, “I’m going to be married by the time I’m 30.” If you’re dating someone when you’re 29, that person is your spouse!

Don’t let little things like lack of communication, arguments over money or rampant infidelity get in the way of your goal. Ignore friends who think you’re making a mistake. They’re not proactive like you are. Keep your eyes on the prize.

And there’s only one way to land the kind of psychopath who will gladly go along with such a plan.

(Cue the porno music.)

Guideline No. 3: Sleep with everyone

We can’t stress this enough. Casual sex is a great way to meet new people. Don’t be fooled by people who tell you this is a mistake. Try and sleep with those people. It’s the right thing to do.

(Cue “Amazing Grace.”)

Think about it. Do you really want to die alone? Wouldn’t you much rather leave a grief-stricken spouse behind, someone who’s so overwrought with pain that his or her life without you is a living hell? Come on, the choice is obvious.

(Originally published 4/21/04.)

Click here to read the previous column “Halt the Spread of Time Banditry.”

If you have a comment, e-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com.

A few weeks ago I was on the phone with my friend “Nick.” He was at work. I was at home. We were talking about what all men talk about on the phone: nothing.

He told me about his acting class. We made plans to see a comedy show. Then we performed our daily in-depth, “Pentagon Papers”-esque critique of the previous night’s 6 p.m., 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. “Simpsons.”

Only men appreciate the subtlety of the dance, because only we can properly sidestep ever saying anything remotely meaningful. Blah-blah Browns defense blah-blah stupid Flanders blah-blah might rain this weekend, then again, might not. First guy to let an actual emotion slip dances alone.

And so it came as a shock when, in mid-sentence, Nick cut me off and said “I love you.”

Click.

I was stunned. Sure we were friends — I was the best man in his wedding — but I never knew he felt this way. He had completely bypassed every intermediate step on his way to the Big One. No “I like you,” or “I enjoy spending time with you,” or “You complete me.”

I love you.

The words hung in the air like a Hello Kitty fanny pack in the Oakland Raiders’ locker room.

Clearly he was joking, I reasoned. He’s giving me the Tenacious D friendship test. He’ll call back any minute, laughing.

So I waited. And waited. And waited.

(For the record, I now know how it feels when a man says he loves you and never calls. It just hurts — so much.)

Finally, I called him back. He wanted to know if I noticed what he said. Like if I said no, maybe we could both deny it ever happened. Sweep it under the rug. The temptation was overpowering.

But there was no way I could let him off the hook. This type of situation comes along maybe once a decade, and it can and will be used against him until we are old men.

He quickly explained that his boss had burst into his office and surprised him. Because he’s new at his job, he didn’t want the boss to think he had been on the phone with a friend for 20 minutes. Even though he had.

So Nick pretended that I was his wife. (For hopefully the first, last and only time.)

Well, I’m happy to say that today our friendship is stronger than ever. We have overcome what was nearly a friendship-destroying profession of love by forthrightly acknowledging the important lessons learned from this incident.

If you’re on the phone with your best friend and he says, “I love you,” it’s probably because his boss just walked in. In these situations, it’s best to hang up the receiver calmly and begin calculating how much beer he now owes you.

Secondly, straight men should say “I love you” only if: (1) You are both running backs for the Chicago Bears and one of you is dying (2) It will keep one of you from getting in trouble at work.

On all other occasions — birthdays, weddings, NFL playoff victories — it is best to use the less-controversial “Dude, you complete me.”

(Originally published 3/17/03.)

Click here to read the previous column “Disco Dopes.”

If you have a comment, e-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com.

Guys, has this ever happened to you?

You and your best friend are out on the town with your dates. You have a nice dinner. You drink a few drinks. You hit the dance floor. This is your night.

Then it happens.

In mid-song, for reasons that are never fully explained to you later, your dates turn and say, “Stay here. We’ll be right back.”

Like that, they’re gone.

Caught in the momentum of your joyous evening, you keep dancing. You gaze up into the disco ball, hands out, palms up as you twirl in circles. Your best friend does the same.

And in mid-twirl, just as you’re about to bend into a ballerina curtsy, it dawns on you.

You’re dancing with a guy. To a Justin Timberlake song. And there are people watching. Not just any people. These are cool people who look like they just stepped out of a Maxim magazine ad after beating up the people in an Esquire magazine ad.

All eyes are on you.

What do you do?

What DO you do?

As a frequent victim of Awkward Female Dance Floor Desertion Syndrome, I think it’s high time we opened a national dialogue regarding what I have designated as “Straight Male-Male Dance Protocol.”

I will open the dialogue by reviewing conventional options.

One obvious solution is to just keep dancing. That’s a good lad, pretend the girls are still there. No one will notice two men dancing to a Justin Timberlake song. Right. Keep believing that as the dance floor parts in a crop circle around you.

Clearly this is an unacceptable option. The only thing most straight men fear more than appearing gay is becoming gay. And we all know that nothing turns you gayer quicker than dancing with another man in public.

It’s not unlike that moment when you’re walking next to your friend and your hands bump and there’s a silence and you know that if one of you doesn’t violently stick-punch the other in the clavicle in the next three seconds you’ll never be friends again.

It happens more often than you’d think.

If you don’t want to keep dancing, you always have the option of fleeing immediately. By doing this, however, you run the risk of appearing homophobic. And as conventional wisdom goes, most homophobes are not comfortable with their own sexual identity.

Bottom line: Both options turn you instantly gay.

If you don’t want to dance with your buddy, yet you don’t want to confront your confused sexuality either, you do have the option of finding other girls to dance with.

The upside: You appear more manly than ever. The downside: Most women do not like returning to find their date grinding on another woman’s badonkadonk. Date over.

If none of those options appeals to you, I do have a secret ace up my sleeve that never fails.

Do this exactly: Stand and sway, half-dancing, half-acting like you’re talking to your friend, half-looking around, half-bobbing your head to the beat, half-nodding hello to imaginary people who in imagination-world are nodding back at you.

It doesn’t look pretty, but it gets the job done.

Where are the women during all this? I think they’re sitting at the bar laughing at us, watching, waiting and praying for the DJ to play a slow song.

I open the floor to you, America. E-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com with your comments. Only together can we eradicate the nationwide dance floor scourge that is the Awkward Female Dance Floor Desertion Syndrome.

(Originally published 12/3/03.)

Click here to read the previous column “Brush your teeth, Courvoisier!”

If you have a comment, e-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com.

Many of my friends are having babies. This, of course, is unfortunate. I’m happy for them, sure. But let’s be honest. Do we really need more people? Aren’t there already enough? Isn’t all this procreation putting an incredible strain on our national resources? What if we run out of bauxite?

My protests, which I utter under my breath and out of earshot, always fall on deaf ears that are not listening. As such, I have resigned myself to the fact that my friends who once celebrated Easter by throwing a watermelon out of a second-story dorm window are now, or soon will be, responsible for fragile human lives.

Yes, the same people who once considered the margarita a vital food group now have important decisions to make. Should they burn the college photo album or hide it? Remove the “Natural Light Forever” tattoo or have an artist turn it into the more baby-friendly “Natal LiFer”? Go to homecoming or attend daughter’s first birthday party?

Perhaps the most difficult decision of all: Should they give their child a normal, traditional name or follow through on their junior-year promise to name their firstborn kid Kegerator Powerchugger?

Tough call.

My friend Sara and her sister Laura are currently in the process of naming Laura’s baby. In spite of months of effort, the sisters have discovered that the baby-naming game can be a snake pit filled with fire-breathing sharks that can fly.

“It’s the parents’ first permanent decision,” Laura said. “You can buy furniture together and if you don’t like it, it can be replaced. You can buy a house and if it doesn’t suit your needs five years down the line, you move. You can alter almost any decision you come to together, but a kid’s name is NOT an easy thing to change.

If you changed it at age 5, they’d be all sorts of confused.”

According to Laura, the plethora of options has parents all sorts of confused too.

At the turn of the last century, all male children in the United States were named Frank or Joe. Anyone not named Frank or Joe was sent to Canada, and rightfully so. Now there are so many names to choose from, it’s like every American kid is a Canadian.

According to www.babycenter.com, the 10 most popular names for boys in 2003 were Jacob, Aidan, Ethan, Matthew, Nicholas, Joshua, Ryan, Michael, Zachary and Tyler. For girls: Emily, Emma, Madison, Hannah, Hailey, Sarah, Kaitlyn, Isabella, Olivia and Abigail.

These are hardly Biblical classics - except for Tyler, the patron saint of Pabst beer and kicking butt at darts.

This month’s “Playboy” - a magazine from which I get an estimated 97 percent of my parenting news - says that 298 girls were named Armani in 2000. The magazine also listed seven Courvoisiers, six Timberlands, five Celicas and one Xerox. I’m assuming that Xerox was the second in a set of twins, but I could be way off.

What’s more, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and rocker Chris Martin recently upped the ante by naming their daughter Apple. It’s no rapper-endorsed cognac, but it’s a nice name. Personally, it makes me think of apples.

Bottom line: Being a parent in today’s world, even when you’re not quite a parent yet because the baby hasn’t been born, isn’t easy. To my friends and all others who will soon be parents, I offer this advice - be original. The world doesn’t need another Jacob or Emily.

I recommend Bauxite if it’s a boy. Kegerator Powerchugger if it’s a girl.

(Originally published 5/19/04.)

Click here to read the previous column “French, Russians and Canadians Proved Wrong: You Can Be Happy.”

If you have a comment, e-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com.

Happiness gets a bad rap.

Throughout history, intellectuals have treated our most exultant feeling as if it were the random fry in our emotional onion rings — a rare exception provided by some outside providence. In the words of leading intelligentsia:

“Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.” — Marcel Proust, French novelist

“Happiness does not await us all. One needn’t be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money.” — Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russian author, playwright

“Happiness is always a byproduct. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.” — Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist

Such fatalism is to be expected of citizens from 1.) the surrendering-est country in the surrendering-est part of the world 2.) a nation that seriously thought, “Communism — spectacular idea!” 3.) a people whose habit of ending their sentences with the colloquial “eh?” forever reveals their innermost doubts.

But we in the United States take our happiness seriously. We even wrote the word Happiness — with a capital H no less — into our Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Where some would lead you to believe that the pursuit of happiness is a waste of time, two American researchers have published data suggesting the same conclusion: even in these uncertain times we live in, it is possible to make yourself happy.

William Fleeson, associate professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, has found that acting extroverted makes people happier. Whether a person is shy or outgoing, being more talkative, adventurous, bold or assertive has a positive effect.

College students who tracked their moods for two weeks reported feeling happier when, for example, they sang along with the radio, talked to an attractive girl, or voiced an opinion. They felt less happy when acting reserved.

The study also revealed that the short-term positive effect of acting extroverted carries into the long-term.

“As a society, we tend to think of happiness as something that comes from outside us. It’s kind of a radical idea that we have some control of happiness, that personality is a factor in happiness and that, to some extent, we have control over our personalities,” Fleeson said.

Charles Schaefer agrees. The Fairleigh Dickinson professor recently revealed research that suggests that one minute of laughter — even if forced — can improve your mood.

“Once the brain signals the body to laugh, the body doesn’t care why,” Schaefer told the Washington Post. “It’s going to release endorphins, it’s going to relieve stress as a natural physiological response to the physical act of laughing.

“I believe laughing does at least four things for you. It energizes you. It cheers you up. It relaxes you. It rejuvenates you. For adults, you feel younger. It’s like that Chinese proverb: ‘Every laugh makes you 10 years younger.’ “

Forced laughter — it’s not just for fictitious megalomaniac super-terrorists anymore.

What should we make of Proust, Chekhov, Davies and others who feel happiness is so unattainable they’re compelled to share their failure with the world?

I believe American playground-philosopher Nelson Muntz put it best when he said, “Haw-haw!”

(Originally published 4/7/03.)

Click here to read the previous column “The War on Drugs Starts at Foot Locker.”

If you have a comment, e-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com.