THE SEARCH FOR MR. ADEQUATE
Part XIX
By SUSAN SILVER

So, finishing up the best selling book on “Finding A Husband After 35,” using Harvard Business School tips … (see last weeks Column) we have

1.) Established ourselves as a brand to be marketed … but in the new and improved version, yes, kind of like a toilet tissue.

2.) Advertised ourselves in every way possible short of hiring a sky writer.

3.) Forgotten about our “type” and are casting a net wide enough to include creatures of other species … and are still NOT ready to actually date.

Nope. We are only at Step 5 of a Step 15 Program! Geez … alcoholics only have 12 Steps!

Next, you are to “customize” yourself. Like a car, I guess. You are to write down the needs of a few former boyfriends and see if you met any of them. Well duh! The operative word here is “former,” isn’t it? And if I customized myself to every man I’ve met, I’d be sewing my mouth shut, wearing garterbelts and four inch spike heels, and engaging in threesomes twenty-four/seven!

Or maybe I jest. But I kind of like being myself, albeit the good version when I am dating someone. Call me crazy. I’ll skip that step.

Next comes … another quiz! I failed the first one so let’s see how I do on this one. Quiz to determine if you are in a rut. Well, let me put it this way. I answered yes to 10 out of the 11 questions and the only one I didn’t answer was “do I go to work via the same way every day.” I don’t work and don’t go anywhere every day. Except from my bedroom to the kitchen. Rut? Rut is my middle name, girl. Moving on.

You are supposed to change one habit a day … like where you go grocery shopping, find a new cleaners, walk your pet a new route. This is really good advice except I order by phone, have clothes picked up, and I don’t have a pet. Are you getting the picture?

Use the business rule: “Always be closing.” You are supposed to “make a sale” every time you open your mouth by ending the sentence with “I would love to meet as many new men as possible. Say, do you by any chance know any single men?” This seems a little awkward with the cabby as he is making change, doesn’t it? And “paper or plastic?” doesn’t seem a question that leads into anything so intimate, but maybe it’s just me. And … SAY … if anyone said that word to me, I’d be laughing so much it would be hard to answer them, period.

I suppose that last one goes along with using someone’s name every two words, like used car salesmen do. But do try it, Sally, won’t you, Sally?

Then come the really BIG changes suggested in this book, (which is starting to feel like a cross between Alice In Wonderland and a Manual for the Marines). If you have a job that you do at home, you’re supposed to quit it and look for something that gets you out of the house. Like the unemployment line? Or move to another city. (Hint: do not go to San Francisco. Unless of course you really want to make a BIG big change and become a guy.)

I actually knew a woman who took all this kind of stuff to heart before even reading a book like this. She had sold her business for a ton of money and decided to devote all her profit and energy to finding the husband she’d been too busy working, to find before. She got a “life coach” to redress her, got every body part redone by surgery and went around asking total strangers to fix her up. It was humiliating to be standing next to her and now whenever I see anyone she did it to, they run … from me!

She also attached herself to me when I was on a vacation and threw a hysterical fit because I wouldn’t go out to dinner with her one night; she had to look for men every minute or die. Needless to say, we are no longer friends though I do see her every once and awhile though she has to be re-introduced to me as she is constantly having more plastic surgery. But until they figure out a way to do a personality transplant, nothing’s going to work!

Continuing with our Manifesto, we are to “date women.” No no … it means women are more likely to fix you up, so woo them. I guess if you really take this hint to the extreme, you could hit on husbands and that would make the wives think to fix you up … or kill you.

You aren’t supposed to take no for an answer but keep pestering them like “how about your husband’s golf buddies?” “Don’t you know any single dad’s at your kids’ school?” “How about friends of your friends friends?” And this of course will lead to the poor targeted woman saying, “Of course, how could I forget the gardener’s cousin?” Or …” get away from me, you man hungry idiot/tramp!”

Next, the author says you are to call everyone you have ever met in your life … “even summer camp from years ago.” She says if you make 100 calls you should expect to generate 10 blind dates. This is getting scary. You are probably going to be arrested soon, but maybe the cop is cute. Oh oh, it’s catching!

There are “case studies” in which women reveal what happened as they made their calls. One ends, “Who would have guessed that number 203 would lead me to The One.” (Dear Reader, excuse me but I have to take a pill now. Cyanide comes in pill form, doesn’t it?)

There are charts and work sheets that accompany these tasks to set daily goals and then a little chapter titled: “Don’t I sound desperate making these calls?” The author’s answer is that no one knows you are making so many calls … they think it’s just to them. And that you are not to think of it as desperate. Think of it as “proactive.” My answer is: DESPERAAAATE!!!

Hold on, we’re almost at the end. Of the book, and our rope, and ready to use said rope to hang ourselves. So let’s skim quickly through the rest. (Although the Author gets a trifle snotty here and says if you are still unconvinced of the importance of making these calls, you should think of yourself as ‘dying alone’ if you don’t do it. Thank you. If she were really smart, she’d include the part about your apartment smelling and the police having to break the down the door which is a thought I have often. But I depress.)

She also lists other means that we have already discussed such as single’s ads, dating services etc. (I have more fun experiences of those to recall and relate to you, but that’s in a future column.) She also recommends social locations you must frequent, but hastens to add that you shouldn’t hit airline lounges unless you are actually traveling. I guess the terrorism thing is hampering our dating venues. The nerve of Al Qaeda!

More charts and something called the Mass Marketing Summary grid … and then a chapter called “Reality Check.” Its point is to keep things in some perspective so you don’t get fired, arrested, or carted away to the asylum. TOO LATE!

Hold on, we’re reaching the end. The next section which is entitled “Tips for mass marketing” actually has some good ideas. Arrive early at events, go alone instead of with a gang, start conversations etc. But we are having so much fun trashing, wouldn’t you rather just continue in that vein?

The culmination of this all is to throw a party. But not just any party. This is a Program Party with strict rules to implement everything you’ve done so far. A networking event to show yourself off and you are to pick a “theme.”

I guess “wedding” is too on the nose. Any theme will work because the point is to say “not just a regular party.” She tells about someone who hired a Thomas Jefferson impersonator for a party themed “Historical Dialogue.”

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Although she does say “no anti-war” themes, it’s supposed to be “light-hearted.” Okay so I guess that means the Abu Ghraib Bash is off. Sorry.

Incidentally, the author met her husband at one of these, and there are also other success stories spread through the book. Confession: I actually know someone who did this Program and met a neat husband and now has an adorable child. She recommended it to me. So if you are willing, I guess it can work. It’s just too much work for me. I have already been married and I’d say women who have never been married and really want kids are the best bets for this route.

The last point the Author makes is that since this is such hard work, you are to “recharge your battery” before embarking on the “journey …” that over used new word that all reality shows seem to require contestants to mouth. It should be a “stress free time without the agenda.” Wear your nightgown all day, lounge around in bed, do whatever makes you happy even if it’s nothing. Hey, wait a minute …

That’s how I live my life everyday and I don’t even want to do the Program! So I spent $15 for nothing. But maybe this will inspire you, Dear Reader. Let me know, won’t you? But if you are charged with harassment of any kind or get a restraining order taken out on you by your friends … forget you know me! Till next week when I regale you with more of my adventures in the (lack of) skin trade …

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