DEAR SUSAN: Every time I have a date, I come home terribly disappointed. Then I take it out on the people around me, wherever I happen to be. Being single is not at all what I expected. What's wrong with me? — Emily E., Long Island, N.Y.

DEAR EMILY: All you need is an attitude adjustment — take it from me. It's your expectations — those demons that, left unchecked, can ruin a perfectly fine life. They thrive on a diet of disappointments, and they can be easily traced to unrealistic hopes and pessimism. You should read those studies that link optimism with success (getting what you want) and pessimism with depression and shyness. Edward E. Jones, a Princeton University psychologist, concluded that expectations not only affect the way we view reality, but the reality itself! He believes we alter our social environment through our behavior and that our expectations determine the way we behave. Makes a lot of sense, no? It's pure logic: As we expect, so will we attain. Best to keep our expectations in check, on a middling level. That middle ground is fertile soil for faith and hope, and a far cry from pie-in-the-sky daydreaming. The trick is to remain grounded in reality while dancing with the stars. I wish it to you.

PARABLE. A traveler came to a wise man and asked about the people living in his city. The wise man replied by asking the traveler about the inhabitants of the city he had just left.

"The people there were very friendly and helpful. Very nice indeed."

"Then you'll find the people in this town very nice, also."

A second stranger also came to the wise man and asked the same question. Again, the wise man asked about the people in the city he had just left.

"The town I left was full of thieves and scoundrels," he answered, "all of them rogues."

To which the wise man replied, "You'll find the people in this town the same."

So much of what happens to us is a fulfillment of our expectations.

What are yours?

ALCHEMY: The mission of "Single File" is to bring your individuality from partial to primary. The longer you read this column — in the newspaper or online — the more you realize that it's possible to take control of your life and that this single space in your life is the perfect time to make it happen. This column (and my book) is about power, your personal power and where it can take you if you allow it. To do that, you need to accept your singleness (and stop fleeing it) as fact and start making friends with it. That may be a radical view, but to me it makes great good sense.

Don't misunderstand. You won't have to choose between the full life you create and love. Far from it. Some single people — mainly women, sad to say — cling to the fiction that developing oneself while unmarried is preparation for lifelong singleness. They never get to know who they are, never dig into the opportunities around them. They do all they can to deny the present reality of their lives. Imagine all the potential energy in them, stored and woefully underutilized, as they pine away and silently hope for the love that will make them whole and justify their existence. Many people in the single community are a small part of what they could be if they did a little renovating upstairs.

But living your potential is only part of the mission here. The main thrust of its principles is to put you on the path to personal growth so that in time, you can make your life your own. Your choices to achieve that goal are strictly personal — yours alone. My role is to help you make them.

Write to Susan Deitz c/o this newspaper. She will answer all letters that come with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Or you may e-mail her at info@creators.com.

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