How to get a great deal ... on a husband

Do you like shopping, but not dating? What if there was a way to make dating just like shopping? In “How to Shop for a Husband,” author and TODAY contributor Janice Lieberman uses her shopping and dating expertise to help you close the deal on the most important “purchase” of your life — your spouse.

My friends and I used to have a running joke: We wouldn’t date a guy if we didn’t like his shoes. I think it was my friend Roz who first pointed out the problem, but then we all fell in line. Geeky shoes were a nonnegotiable no-no, a reason to cross a guy off our unwritten, potential-husband list with no further explanation necessary. If a guy had cheap shoes, shiny shoes, shoes with high heels — pretty much any shoes that weren’t black or brown — he was a goner. Ixnay. No go. And you know those worn-out, mousy-brown, sort-of-fuzzy lace ups? As if!

One by one, my girlfriends managed to get over the shoe thing. They either found guys who wore good-enough shoes, or quickly improved the shoe wardrobe after marriage. My sister managed to find her future husband in summer camp, when they were both sixteen. But there I was, searching endlessly for the perfectly shod man. Looking back, I have to ask myself: was that any way to shop for a husband?

Of course, I had plenty of other reasons besides shoes for crossing guys off my PGHM (Perfectly Good Husband Material) list: boring, bad job, bad breath, bad mother. I have to admit I was kinda picky. There were plenty of pretty nice guys — guys with potential, guys who could, perhaps, have been gently molded into PGHMs — that I dismissed out of hand.

I would say to myself: shouldn’t a girl be picky? Why should a girl have to settle? And if I do settle, won’t I be miserable later on? This internal debate went on for years, while I dated what seemed like most of the eligible bachelors on the eastern seaboard.

There was the doctor who wanted me to room with his mother on vacation. The guy who slurped his yogurt. The ex from high school who always had a new motorcycle but never a job. I dated and dismissed, dated and dismissed, all the while longing for the man with the perfect shoes (and the perfect everything else).

Once in a while, I would meet a guy who seemed to be up to snuff, shoes and all. Somehow, though, the relationship would stagnate or stall, and end up going nowhere fast. Maybe, I would console myself, none of these guys was the one meant for me.

But where was he and why was this so freaking hard?

While my personal life floundered, I have to admit my professional life took off. In fact, the worse things got in the man department, the better they got at the office. Over time I worked my way up from covering stories for a local TV affiliate in Buffalo, New York, to becoming a consumer expert on national network news shows. For years, I anchored a daily TV show on CNBC, Steals and Deals, in which we showed the world how not to get scammed. On that show, we offered consumers rules for finding the best products, getting the best deals, and closing those deals on the most favorable terms. Then I joined NBC’s Today Show, where I became the consumer expert. For a little girl who grew up on Mary Tyler Moore, I was living the life I had dreamed of, the life I had worked so hard for, the life I so wanted.

But still, no husband. It felt like a big gaping hole in my otherwise very happy life. The bottom line was this: I was a shopping expert, but I didn’t know how to shop for a husband.

By the way: Does any of this sound familiar to you? I wouldn’t be surprised, because most of my girlfriends, not to mention my mother, were in the same boat as I was, adrift in the Sea of No Good Guys. They all had great jobs, great clothes, great friends, and could basically run the world. And they certainly know how to shop. They just couldn’t land a good deal on a guy.

After years of dating misery, I finally took matters in hand. After all, this was the most important shopping trip of my life, wasn’t it? And shopping was certainly a topic I knew a lot about. So I decided to approach dating in a smart, systematic way, as if I were making the purchase of a lifetime. Slowly but surely, and almost before I even realized it, I began to apply the rules I had learned as a consumer reporter — caveat emptor, don’t get scammed, learn where to shop, and know how to close a favorable deal — to shopping for a husband. I made a list of what I really wanted, I narrowed down the shopping venues to those that would really work for me, I consulted some experts who helped me get into a marriageable state of mind, and I figured out how to close the deal.

As it turns out, shopping for the typical consumer goods — a car, a bed, or a diamond ring — is really not that different from shopping for a guy. The laws of consumer behavior and protection really do apply beautifully to the dating scene. And not long after applying the “rules” — the rules of being an educated consumer, that is — they worked for me. Finally, after years of searching, I met and married Steve, a great guy who even has some really nice shoes. With the recent arrival of our second child, I can’t believe I spent all those years not knowing the how, what, and where of shopping for a husband.

I wrote this book because I don’t want you to waste time like I did. I’m over it, ladies, and I hope you are too. Get ready, because in the following chapters, I will show you how to make the rules of consumer behavior work for you in your dating life. After all, it makes sense: dating doesn’t need to be the part of your life in which all bets are off and you lose all of your otherwise rational thought processes. No matter how picky you are, you don’t need to be the kind of girl who has it all when it comes to her work life, or when it comes to her friends, or even when it comes to her children — but not when it comes to her love life. You don’t need to live a life in which your personal happiness is placed firmly on the back shelf with the expired canned goods.

In this book, we will take you through the entire husband-shopping process. First, we’ll set out the rules for picking out good husband material. What makes for a great, long-lasting relationship and how do we know it when we see it? Then, we’ll show you where to shop for that dream guy. Bars, the Internet, singles vacations, your workplace? Which are winners and which are losers? We’ve got the goods. Finally, we’ll give you the inside scoop on closing the deal and by that we mean ring, aisle, guest list, and honeymoon.

Just follow the rules of being a good consumer, listen to what the experts say, and I think you, too, will be very happy with the “purchase” you make. And you might even like his shoes.

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