Also described as courtship.
Successful dating patterns include:
There are also some guides:
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/sextips/
This one is by EricRaymond of OpenSource (in)fame, and it's pretty good, if what you need is a morale boost. Otherwise it probably won't say anything new to you. -- DanielKnapp
http://dating.about.com/library/weekly/aa022801.htm
http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/sah/Dating.html
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=582406&lastnode_id=578749
http://nasw.org/users/kfox/rules.htm
http://fastseduction.com/guide/
The dating design patterns I know include these:
Lots more patterns at http://www.datingdesignpatterns.com Originally written, they say, by the Gang of Four in college, but suppressed.
A mathematical approach: (from http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-53/iss-11/p22.html)
Alice and Bob are considering going on a date, but neither is willing to admit their interest unless the other is also interested. How can they decide whether or not to date without letting slip any unnecessary information?
"This dating problem can be phrased as the problem of computing a function f(a, b) = ab, where a and b are single bits held respectively by Alice and Bob (0 = not interested, 1 = interested). Problems like this can be solved classically using variants of public key cryptography, which we know might be rendered insecure by quantum computers. By exchanging quantum states, can Alice and Bob solve the above dating problem with absolute security?"
The TaoOfSteve is another source of DatingPatterns.