Dennie Hughes, the author of 'Dateworthy' and the USA Weekend Relation Tips columnist, was recently interviewed by AOL Book Maven Bethanne Patrick. Here are excerpts of that interview:

Bethanne Patrick: Dennie, hello, how are you?

Dennie Hughes: I am great, how are you?

Bethanne Patrick: I am very well and full disclosure -- in the interest of journalistic objectivity -- Dennie and I have known each other for a very long time, so if we laugh hard, people, just go right along. We want to talk about 'Dateworthy' and the problem is I know some of the experiences that have gone into this book.

Dennie Hughes: It's so true. If you read those dating diaries, you're like, 'oh I know that one.'

Bethanne Patrick: Exactly, exactly. But you know what, you didn't get to be the relationtip columnist from just sitting around typing on a laptop. You got it from real life. So Dennie, tell us a little bit about why you wrote 'Dateworthy.'

Dennie Hughes: You're right, it's not like one of these psychologists putting together ideas of what they think dating is like. I've been doing the dating thing probably since kindergarten. Vino Valdino, with short pants -- they were plaid pants -- he beat up some kid that was making fun of him and I thought 'that is some guy.' It started from there and worked its way up.

I've been working as an advice columnist now for over a decade; first, for teenagers -- and you've got to love the teenage mentality. Their worst problem in the world is one of these things where 'I'm in love with my boyfriend but he's become addicted to Cheetos. Not only has he gained ten pounds but he's getting orange stuff all over everything! Help!'

Bethanne Patrick: And so their problems can seem very silly to an older person but the thing we have to remember is that they're all-consuming.

Dennie Hughes: I can't stand it when a parent tells a child, 'It's not really love' because, you know what, it IS love from your experience. When you're in love with somebody and you're 13, 14, 15 -- that is your version of love. You feel so intensely for this person, so for someone to say it's not, it's so wrong. But the one letter that I kept seeing going from a teen magazine to an adult magazine is about, 'how do I get someone to notice me, how do I get someone to love me, how do I know this is real?' There are over 90 million singles in the United States and no one is meeting each other.

Bethanne Patrick: That's a problem and that's what we want to talk about today. For AOL Coaches we want to know 10 reasons why you're still single basically. No, I'm just kidding. But really, why don't you have the guy you want right now? We want to talk about that for the single women out there.

Dennie Hughes: We can break it down. Rule one for me is, take a reality check. The common denominator -- and I hate to say it because women think 'oh you're blaming me.' I'm not blaming you. I'm giving you the power to understand that if I can put it back on you that means that you can change it. And the common denominator in all those dates gone wrong is you.

Bethanne Patrick: Now this is very important, I want you to emphasize this because I know some of your reviews have said that you're making women feel bad, you're putting it back on them but you just said something very important -- if you say 'I'm taking responsibility for this,' than you can change it. Otherwise it's out of your control.

Dennie Hughes: My biggest frustration with 'He's Just Not That Into You,' which was a fun book to read, but I get to the end of it and not only do they not tell you, 'how do I get the next guy to get interested in me,' but they seem to want to put all this blame on the guys. Women embraced it because they felt like it was something out of their control. And to a point, yeah, you can't make another person like you as much as you like them.

But let's face it: it's the choices you make. You're the one who chooses who you go after and you're the one who chooses who gets to get you -- who gets to catch you. If you start looking at yourself and why you make the choices that you do and you start recognizing that's stuff that's so easy to get rid of. When you're dateworthy you can recognize dateworthy, and you know that you should have someone who's dateworthy.