Horizon Realty real estate agent Joe Kandel wrote the book on dating.

In Wanna Know Why You’re Still Single?, published last summer by Bridgeway Books, Kandel offers what he candidly calls “a cold slap in the face for people who are in denial” about why they’re not finding lasting relationships. He advises his readers to develop the same kinds of communication, awareness and compromise skills that have served him in business. And he cautions them that “everything you say and do with and to people has ramifications.”

“A good relationship is like a real estate transaction,” he says. “You have to give and take.”

Kandel started writing Wanna Know Why You’re Still Single? three years ago, but really “kicked it into gear last year because I saw all these misguided people on TV shows and in magazines. I wrote it because there are a lot of single people out there who overcomplicate the dating issue. It’s not rocket science.”

In part, too, it was a matter of “survivalship,” he says, because the real estate industry has been so bad. “I told myself, ‘look, you’re going to be 50, you’ve been thinking of writing a book all your life, get off your butt and do it now.’”

Among his advice, which he also dispenses on his Web site, www.joe-dater.com, “People put too much stock in what I call superficial instant chemistry, that rocket’s red glare, the heart-thumping, pie-in-the-sky images they see in Hollywood. Those kinds of relationships are not realistic, they rarely last.”

A former radio and television newsman with a degree in broadcasting and journalism, Kandel owned and operated three T.J. Cinnamons Bakery franchises in Southwest Florida with his father before turning to real estate sales 15 years ago.

As for his own love life, Kandel was married right out of college and is now single. He says he dates “here and there right now,” but doesn’t have time for a steady relationship. Book tours have taken him to Naples and his native St. Louis, and he’s in discussions about doing seminars on singles cruises.

Kandel already has started a second book which deals with civil discourse in American society—“everything from leaving your grocery cart horizontal in the aisle, to hatred of religion, bigotry and racism—things people think about, but don’t talk about.”

“I’m not a John Grisham. I know I’m not going to sell a million copies,” he says about his new pursuit, “but I’ve always wanted to do it.”