David Tasaka is a speaker and entrepreneur who has spent years helping individuals find the route to prosperity through frugality and financial education. But with Valentine’s Day approaching, his thoughts turned to love and the minefield of dating that awaits singles today.

Tasaka, executive director of the Lyte Foundation, which encourages empowerment, was slated to teach a course, "Live Your Life with a Millionaire Mindset," on Feb. 16 at Alice Inoue’s Happiness U and, believing that love and finances go hand in hand, was able to add another course to the curriculum, "Date Smart You: Looking for Love in All the Right Places," for those whose thoughts are turning to finding romance in 2014.

The session will take place 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday with Tasaka sharing tips for dating smarter. Far from viewing love as the result of luck and happenstance, he looks at love as a numbers game best played by taking a businesslike approach. It starts with knowing oneself and making a list of attributes of desirable candidates, as well as deal breakers that might include religious and political beliefs, income level and desire for children and/or pets.

"To me dating is a journey, and if you know where the potholes and cliffs are, you’re better off. But most people are on the journey at night without a light, and they’re falling left and right. You have to be able to observe, ‘This person is attractive but no good.’ To have a solid relationship, people have to be best friends, because friends are willing to forgive, support us and console us, all the things that are nurturing."

Tasaka said he’s been interested in relationships since the 1970s, when he was working as a booking agent in the entertainment industry, spending many a night in clubs.

"I saw the dating game played out over and over again, and it was brutal. Typically there would be coed groups of five or six women coming in, and there would be a pecking order. The guys would all swirl around, and the most beautiful girl would get picked first and it would go downward from there."

It was far from the best of circumstances in which to meet the love of one’s life.

"Nightclubs are an artificial environment," he said. "Everyone’s trying to put their best foot forward; girls are all dressed up; guys are all trying to be cool, and it’s not reality. It’s plastic, it’s fake and the errors are compounded when you’re compromised with alcohol."

In those days relationships may not have lasted, but at least couples were willing to give marriage a shot. In 1960, 72 percent of American adults were married. In contrast, a report released last year by Bowling Green (Ohio) State University’s National Center for Marriage and Family Research found that the U.S. marriage rate has fallen to an all-time low of 31.1 percent. The marriage rate has been falling for nearly a century. In 1920 the national marriage rate was 92.3 percent.

So singles are not alone. Today there are 103 million unmarried people, 18 and older, in America, representing 44.1 percent of all U.S. adults, according to U.S. Census data.

Chalk it up to progress. Tasaka said he saw the shift in the male-female relationship beginning in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when more women began seeking higher education and income parity in the workplace.

"The ability to pay their own way removed the necessity to find a man to take care of them. Women I knew were no longer inclined to find just anybody, so people started to get confused," Tasaka said. "We (baby boomers) were with one foot still back in our parents’ generation. The idea of marrying the girl or boy next door dissolved, and everybody went out and did their own thing."

WHICH BRINGS us to where we stand today. Unwilling to compromise. Unwilling to settle for less than we deserve. And alone.

Not that that’s a bad thing to Tasaka, who believes in exercising patience in the search for love, and that no one should ever settle for second or third best. That is the cause of unhappiness, or broken relationships, when Mr. or Ms. Right eventually does comes along. "People settle, with grave consequences," he said.

And, even in light of hearing many a man and woman complain "there’s no one good out there," Tasaka keeps an optimistic and encouraging outlook that there is someone for everyone.

"Dating can be a minefield, or it can be a flower field. You have to look at it as fun and be light about it because that is what will keep you going. I know one woman who got engaged after going on 500 dates, and another one who is 71 and marrying for the first time."

Though it is intimidating to many, he believes technology is the best tool for finding love, helping individuals rapidly sift through dozens of potential suitors.

"Typically, people would meet each other in bars, at church, in the workplace, in continuing education class, or maybe an aunt would introduce them, but I think that is not efficient. I am also a marriage officiant, and one-third of the couples I have married have met online. If you’re looking to make a connection, you have to be in the area where connections are being made.

"You have to process a lot. If you only have two or three candidates, they might all fall through the cracks. That’s what leads to ‘last-date-in-the-world’ syndrome. If you feel like you only have a few people to choose from, that can be really depressing. But if you have 100 potential dates, you can just say, ‘Next!’"

Online dating also opens the world to suitors outside of Hawaii, but Tasaka doesn’t recommend long-distance dating.

"It’s so difficult logistically. Unfortunately, the majority of long-distance romances have a much less chance of success than a localized relationship, partly because the situations that come up in a normal relationship don’t come up. In the minimal time you see each other, you’re so happy to be together that you don’t see the bad. A true relationship is built one on one."

Tasaka, who is divorced but has a girlfriend, also recommends talking about money early in a relationship.

"Many people find money a taboo subject. They don’t discuss it until after they get married when they should talk about it before."

For self-protection, questions to be asked include, How much debt do you have? and, Have you ever declared bankruptcy?

He learned the hard way that attitude about money forms a foundation for relationships when, in the early ’80s, he married a woman with a $2 million inheritance, tempted by the idea of owning a home atop Waialae Iki and driving a Mercedes-Benz.

"I know firsthand what it feels like to be a kept spouse. From that I learned, there is no free lunch. Whoever controls the money controls the relationship, so I’m a firm believer in coequal relationships so neither has to be beholden to the other and they can both make empowered decisions.

"It took me a long time to admit I had married for money, and I didn’t like what was happening to me. I began to devalue people. It became painful because that was not who I was," he said.

Among subjects Tasaka will cover in his class is the pre-date, perhaps a casual meeting for coffee, just to find out whether a person is worth pursuing. He said he knows of people who might make five pre-dates on a Saturday to sift through potentials, no less a commitment than the search for a job or other worthwhile project.

"If you don’t give up on love, it will come to you," Tasaka said. "That woman who went on 500 dates never gave up on love, and that’s what kept her going."