As a singleton, dating in this modern world is treacherous enough as it is, especially when dealing with complex emotions and delicate issues or baggage that make up the human psyche. Now, imagine agreeing to every single date proposed to you, with no thought on even if you can stand the other half's company for two minutes. Such an indiscriminate dating strategy was exactly what author Maria Headley experimented with for one year in her early twenties. She does set some limits though, excluding all drunks, junkies, violent and/or married men. And she has chronicled her various adventures in dating everything mundane to the bizarre in her book The Year Of Yes.

Heart sick over her dating record, cynical New Yorker, Maria Headley, resolves to start saying an emphatic "Yes" to every man on the street one day. With a buzzer-happy, persistent handyman as her first conquest, things do not seem to get off on a correct foot for Maria's resolution. Locals and foreigners, young and old, straight and lesbian, Maria is letting fate decide if any of these strangers could turn out to be her soul mate. But, as she progresses along, Maria unexpectedly discovers some very important life lessons and that some cliches really do hold true, that fighting for true love is worth the journey.

I first learnt of this book's release via a New York website, Gawker.com, and it intrigued me that someone would dare to open themselves up so widely, with little, or even zero, protection emotionally and physically. Curiosity urged me to pick up this book and I have to say, I'm rather impressed by Maria Headley's courage. People's darker sides surface as intimacies grow and it's disconcerting to know certain weird fetishes abound in our society. I don't think I would have reacted the same way when approached by a homeless man with delusions of being Jimi Hendrix's reincarnation or a cheeky 70-year-old gentleman who keeps repeating the Spanish word "Chupa" on your first acquaintance. Any woman with a fertile, available womb can even be seen as a factory of babies, nothing more, nothing less. And in an ironic twist, the latter view was actually held by a power lesbian Maria Headley briefly dated. Suffice it to say, dating in New York can be a whole other world of horror by itself.

Maria Headley is also a playwright and her theatrical style is somewhat reflected in her writing. Breezy and familiar, her language style will be a hit with the ladies who have had common experiences in disastrous blind dating. Some of the dates may seem a tad outlandish and you might have to suspend belief for a moment or two; did Maria Headley really make out with Marilyn Manson on the dance floor at some random costume party? Was the multi-millionaire Microsoft executive, who still lived with his mother and proposed marriage on their first date, really enamoured with Maria's womanly charms? Once you've taken that proverbial pinch of salt, The Year Of Yes can prove to be quite the inspiration for the single ladies out there. If anything, this book is also an excellent resource for the dos and don'ts about dating etiquette.