Also described as courtship.

Successful dating patterns include:

	* BeYourself
	* BeSelfConfident
	* PlayTheNumbers
	* StopLooking
	* KnowWhatYouWant
	* GoSlowly (see the TaoOfSteve)
	* GoQuickly
	* ThereMustBeFood

Or for you extreme fans:
	* ExtremeDating (this page isn't even a joke)

There are numerous resources, but the idea of design patterns seems lacking from the self-help community.

There are also some guides:

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/sextips/

This one is by EricRaymond of OpenSource (in)fame, and it's pretty good, if what you need is a morale boost.  Otherwise it probably won't say anything new to you. -- DanielKnapp

http://dating.about.com/library/weekly/aa022801.htm

http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/sah/Dating.html

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=582406&lastnode_id=578749

http://nasw.org/users/kfox/rules.htm

http://fastseduction.com/guide/
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The dating design patterns I know include these:
	* TrojanProxy (get your female friends to patrol for you)
	* EncapsulatedBigFatOpening ("Gosh, wouldn't it be fun for all of us to go to the dance?")
	* And of course HalfBadBoyPlusProtocol ;> ("That's kind of like what happened to me in prison...") 
Naturally, of course, many should be supplemented with judicious use of chocolate. Basically if you just pull out some Godiva on the chairlift, that's a really easy way to create conversational state with a target female.

Lots more patterns at http://www.datingdesignpatterns.com  Originally written, they say, by the Gang of Four in college, but suppressed.
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A mathematical approach:
(from http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-53/iss-11/p22.html)

''Alice and Bob are considering going on a date, but neither is willing to admit their interest unless the other is also interested. How can they decide whether or not to date without letting slip any unnecessary information?''

"This dating problem can be phrased as the problem of computing a function f(a, b) = ab, where a and b are single bits held respectively by Alice and Bob (0 = not interested, 1 = interested). Problems like this can be solved classically using variants of public key cryptography, which we know might be rendered insecure by quantum computers. By exchanging quantum states, can Alice and Bob solve the above dating problem with absolute security?" 
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The TaoOfSteve is another source of DatingPatterns.