While online dating is all fine and dandy (It is! Really!), I think most people would rather form a long-term relationship with another person than with their profile on okcupid.com.If you’re not too proud to seek out some advice when you need it, the whole-what is it called?-love thing doesn’t have to be an endless game of blindly, finger-crossedly picking and choosing boyfriend candidates like you would a pair of peep-toe canvas wedges on Zappos.

I’m not promising that someone will come waltzing up to your hoof with perfectly outfitted glass slippers (just in case, I’m a 9 and a half, wide, please.) What I am saying is that a little help may or may not get you that much closer to ending your string of bad-first-date misery.

On Tuesday, April 12, Chicago Tribune advice columnist and author Amy Dickinson (you’ve read her “Ask Amy” segment in the Trib.) will hand out hints on finding the ever-clichéd “one” and, once you nab him/her, how to keep lasting love. (Sorry, guys, this one looks like it’ll be a gals’ night.)

As part of the 7 p.m. “Ask Amy! Relationships 101: Finding and Keeping Your Soulmate” event at the Chase Auditorium, Dickinson will be joined by founder of Smart Dating Academy Bela Gandhi, and CNN correspondent/author Shanae Hall with TribU host Jennifer Weigel as the moderator.

Questions and comments are welcome, and are basically the point of the “Ask Amy” premise. A texting application at the event will immediately tally discussion results, and a little wine and snacks mingling will close out the night.

Tickets are $20, a decidedly reasonable price for what may turn out to be your 9 and a half, wide, pair of glass slippers. You wouldn’t believe how hard those are to find.