Time marches on, folks. It's a new year, we've got a new world order, and... there's a new doctor in town.

Your previous Doctor of Love has moved on to more and better things, and he's turned over the keys to his treasure trove of romantic wisdom to little old me, straight out of Love U (where the school fight song is "Love U!" "Love you, too!"). I'm here to help you find the mate of your dreams, the date of your means, and to teach you how to avoid spending Friday nights watching reruns of Cheers.

So let's see... what'll we talk about first? How about the biggest date night of the year: New Year's Eve. I was smack-dab in the middle of the street on the Las Vegas Strip for it, in front of Caesar's Palace, getting sprayed with Silly String by rowdy but well-meaning drunks and kissing every pretty girl within reach. After the cheering and hugging and kissing died down, the crowd started singing Auld Lang Syne (a song I still don't know the words to, or have a clue to what it's about) and I shared a tender, intimate moment with what seemed like a million people. And as I stood there singing Should old acquaintance be forgot, la la la la la la...., I thought about how I was going to help all you folks out there and about how if you play your cards right and listen to your ol' Uncle Chuckles you're going to have somebody on your arm that you can squeeze the stuffin's out of and kiss into a coma next New Year's Eve.

But before I can start helping you get your romantic life on track, we're going to have to set down some ground rules we can live by.

Rule #1: Sometimes I'm wrong.
Romance is a tricky business and nobody has all the answers. I'd like to think I've got them, but I don't, and I reserve the right to screw up from time to time. Besides, who ever listens to their friends' advice when they're in love with somebody who doesn't love them? That brings us to...

Rule #2: Sometimes I'm right.
Sometimes I'm incredibly right. Sometimes I'll be so right with what I tell you that it'll scare you and you'll wonder what such a brilliant guy like me is doing without a wedding ring. (Never mind why no wedding ring.) Just know that when I give you good advice and you don't follow it, those will be the times I was right. I'll be right other times too, but when you don't listen to me, that'll be the advice that was a lock.

Rule #3: Tell me about it.
If you have the most fantastic date of your life, I want to hear about it. If you have the lousiest date of your life, I want to hear about that, too. If you hear a great pick-up line, have a great idea for a date, know of a long-lost couple reuniting after ten years, have a success story from our Romance Ads... if you have anything interesting to say about romance and dating, TELL ME ABOUT IT! You can write to me here at the Weekly, and if your story catches my eye I'll put it in the column. (That's your story that'll go in the column, not my eye.) And to make things fair, I'll tell you about my dating adventures too.

But let's get back to New Year's Eve. Where were you and what were you doing when midnight hit? Were you with someone special, were you whooping it up with a bunch of friends, were you at a nightclub with a smile on your face? Or were you alone somewhere, even if you were surrounded by people, feeling lousy because you didn't have a date?

If you were the lonely one, then this column is tailor-made for you. This isn't just going to be about how to find love and happiness, this is going to be about how to let love find you and how to be happy until it gets here. Oh, sure, we'll be talking about how to find the perfect date and the perfect mate and all that, but we're also going to be talking about how not to keep looking around the corner for it and how not to feel like a loser when you hear "Cheers is filmed before a live studio audience." Life is too short to waste time feeling sorry for yourself just because you don't have a date, and feeling sorry for yourself is a lousy way to meet people.

The moral of the story is that love always look darkest when you're heaving into the gutter, but it always gets better.

And you should pay your bets.