Julia Allison, former dating writer and one of the stars of the upcoming Bravo show, “MisAdvised,” recently told the Chicago Sun-Times of 73-point scoring system she devised in order to score potential boyfriends.

“I’m Type A. And I probably learned at New Trier, or perhaps from my parents, that anything worth doing is worth writing a list. I also read The Secret around this time. I guess I didn’t realize everyone didn’t have a 73-point checklist,” she told The Sun. “There are items that are incredibly important that 99 percent of people would not argue with — kindness, love of family, intelligence, ethics and honesty. There’s nothing arbitrary, not a hair color or height. In fact, I actually specify spirituality or a deep faith.”

Interesting.

As someone who works at a dating site, I have to disagree with using a point-system as a strategy. If you’re seriously looking for someone, you don’t want to get too bogged down in the details, and you don’t want to fruitlessly search for someone who fits a very narrow set of criteria and who may not even exist. Think of it in terms of a data query: the more criteria you put in the search box, the fewer results you’re going to get. And trust me, when it comes to dating, you want more results to choose from.

Not to mention the fact that there’s no real logic to compatibility and attraction: you could have a guy who meets 70 of your point requirements and a guy who meets only 35 of them, and you could like the 35-pointer better. Just because he makes you laugh more, or something.

So, no, I really don’t think that devising an in-depth point system is an effective way to search for a partner. Cast a wide net.

That having been said….the thought of creating an organized system for comparing and contrasting various ex-boyfriends is pretty enticing. And as long as you don’t take it too seriously, or let it too strongly sway  your decisions of who to actually date, it could be pretty fun to come up with a basic point-guide. For example, I can imagine my list having “speaks foreign language,” “loves to read,” and “thinks I’m hilarious” as potential points.

What would your just-for-fun boyfriend/girlfriend scoring system look like?