Psychology professor John Buri believes healthy dating can lead to a healthy society, and he published a book late last year to help make that happen.

In his book, titled “Intentional Dating: When You’re Ready to Leave Behind the Liars, Losers, and Lemons,” he gives 15 tips for finding and maintaining healthy romantic relationships.

“Love has an incredible capacity to bring life, and if we can do it well, we’ll actually have a much more life-giving culture in which to live,” Buri said.

Intentional dating, according to Buri, involves awareness of you and your potential partner’s reasons for dating and acting on them. He thinks the modern dating culture often disregards those reasons.

“The fact that we have to literally encourage people to ‘define the relationship’ gives us a very good feel for where dating’s actually at,” he said. “It’s just this kind of vague no-man’s land somewhere between single and married.”

The research-based tips in the book aim to help potential couples clarify their intentions and help them become better partners. Buri said the tips can also be useful for those already in romantic relationships, including married couples. He added that he uses all 15 tips in his marriage.

Buri’s popular “Psychology of Marriage and Family” course discusses many of these same issues. One of the inspirations for the book came from a student in the class several years ago.

“A student in class … said, ‘Dr. Buri, when do you think it’s a good time to stop dating for fun and start dating for marriage?’ And she said it so clearly that that is basically the issue,” he said.

Sophomore Maria Post is currently taking the class and said Buri’s tips are applicable to everyone, whether they are in a romantic relationship or not.

“His book, ‘Intentional Dating,’ it’s not just … what not to do, it’s also what you can do to make yourself a more dateable, marriageable person,” she said.

Buri wrote the first draft of the book while on sabbatical several years ago and was in the editing and rewriting process until its publication in November.

“For me, it’s been a labor of love, so to speak,” he said.

Elena Neuzil can be reached at neuz3833@stthomas.edu.