How to find a husband — or at least one lousy date

Have you ever felt lonely? Wished you had a significant other — or maybe even a spouse?

Mr. Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters, and honored guests, I’d like to tell you my techniques for finding a husband in the hope that it may help you or someone you love.


Back in the 1980s, I was a graduate student who was bored with dating academic men like those who surrounded me at Harvard. What to do? One female friend tried to turn me on to singles bars and clubs. But those places seemed to attract men who couldn’t see anything in a quiet woman like me. Or slimy men who would hit on me, then turn to my friend as soon as I left for the ladies room.


Eventually, through trial-and-error, I came up with a three-pronged approach for successfully prospecting for a mate.

It involved:
1) Find a type of event or group of people where you feel comfortable
2) Go by yourself to those events or to spend time with those people
3) Don’t judge your potential spouse by your first impression

It took me awhile to find a compatible event or organization. As I mentioned, I seemed to attract slimeballs — that’s a technical term — at the singles events and hangouts that I visited with my friend of Italian Catholic descent.

I mention her ethnic background because I’m of Jewish descent, but I’ve never spent much time hanging out with Jews. I always assumed I would marry outside my faith. This delayed my discovery of an excellent resource — a Jewish singles organization.

Another non-Jewish friend kept nagging me to check out the Jewish Young Adult Center JYAC). She had friends who had met and married the people they’d met there. I said to her, "But Lorraine, I’ve never spent much time with Jewish people. And it’s not important to me to marry a Jew."


However, I got tired of prospecting among men who lived their lives in library stacks, so I started to go to JYAC events–mostly talks. I didn’t feel particularly comfortable at those events. I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t know what to talk to them about. I hadn’t yet found my proper milieu.

Then I noticed a singles dance on the calendar. I loved to dance. I was good at dancing, having taken many years of modern dance training. I could command attention on the dance floor more effectively than in a small talk conversation. At last, I had achieved my technique number one: to find an environment where I felt comfortable. I immediately started scoring my first dates. If my recall is accurate, I wangled at least one date out of every dance after the first one.


As I attended the singles dances, I discovered the value of my technique number two, attending the events by myself. It seemed as if men approached me more easily than the women who gathered in groups of two, three or more. Believe me, it wasn’t a matter of choice that I went alone. Remember? I didn’t have any Jewish friends. Also, I didn’t make friends easily, so I didn’t drift into conversations with the other women at the dances. It was easier to stand by myself, sway to the music, and wait for a man to start up a conversation. I’m convinced this was one of the reasons for my success.

At the dance in December, which was held a the Parker House Hotel, I noticed one young man with curly hair. He looked waaay too young for me. I mentally crossed his name off my list of prospects.

However, when he came over and asked me to dance, I said yes. I had nothing to gain by sitting on the sidelines. Maybe I could catch the eye of a suitor of a more appropriate age if I slithered out onto the dance floor.

I wiggled around during one dance. Then this guy asked me for another dance. By this time the dance floor got very crowded, so he suggested we get a drink in the hotel bar. What the heck!

As I downed my customary gin-and-tonic at Parker’s, I thought, this guy has a strange sense of humor. Nonetheless, I kept on chatting. I ended up spending most of the evening with him.

Earlier in my dating career I’d decided that I shouldn’t reject someone simply on the basis of a first impression. That turned out to be a smart decision in terms of snaring a husband because less than three years later I married that sarcastic young whippersnapper.

Thus, if you’re in the market for a spouse, or even just a lousy date, I suggest you follow my three rules. Go by yourself to a place where you feel comfortable and look beyond your first impressions of a potential date and mate.




Have you got any feedback on this first draft of my Toastmasters speech? It’s due this Wednesday — eeek! I’m bringing Iggy for show and tell.