I’ve been married twice, divorced once. Despite my earlier marriage ending in divorce after fourteen years, I have no regrets that I married my first husband.
Why? Because despite what went wrong, he was essentially a man of quality, a QM, and it showed in the arrangements he made for me through the divorce process.
This meant despite feeling devastated I was put in an easier position to begin a new independent life. In due course I met a wonderful man of completely unimpeachable quality, and, Reader, I married him.
Life could have been much harsher if my first choice had been seriously wide of the mark.
This is so unlike the bitter stories I hear from women who say, ‘I can remember my wedding as if it were yesterday and if it were tomorrow, I wouldn’t turn up.’
I’ve learnt there are no guarantees in marriage as in life but if you choose a QM the chances of a lasting bond are increased, and if, unfortunately, things do go wrong, it makes a smoother aftermath more likely.
How do you attract and recognise a QM?
Be a woman of quality
Start with yourself. You strive to be a woman of integrity. You are not a doormat but you are considerate. You are polite and don’t eff and blind. Your word is your bond. You try to have good habits, or at least you’re working on them!
Talking maliciously behind other people’s backs holds no interest for you. You respect yourself and others, and it shows.
Exude quality
While it’s your inner quality that ultimately counts, you express this quality outwardly by showing that you value yourself.
Whatever your dress-style (casual/chic/urban/classic/housewife) you clearly care about yourself. You look ‘together’. You are fresh, clean, coordinated. You hold your head high and carry yourself well.
You look like you would be a pleasant person to get to know. You don’t need to go around with an inane grin on your face but a half-smile is saying, Actually my life’s OK, there is much to enjoy even if the world’s not perfect. It sends a reassuring signal.
Go where the QMs are
Once you've established yourself as a woman of quality, define what quality in a man means to you. For me it meant an intelligent and professional man with a good moral compass whom I could find attractive.
First time round, I was drawn to a large, lively church in a university city, sensing people there would share my feeling that it matters how you live your life and treat others.
You may or may not have any religious beliefs but if you have even the tiniest spark of curiosity to find out more, I can recommend this approach. It’s easy to do some online or word-of-mouth research on places of worship of your own particular religion and get an idea of the people who are part of its community.
The place I picked was made up of people like me in their 20s and 30s. This proved excellent for social life generally, not just due to the fact that I met a lovely man there with a fascinating career. We married two years later.
Fast-forward twenty years later. Post-divorce, my instinctive reaction was to blame God for what had happened, so I avoided church and socialised elsewhere. Generally at social functions, I noticed women massively outnumbered men so to correct the imbalance, I searched out social events which interested me and which had ‘QM appeal’.
Some examples of these:
- A gym which ran evening social events such as wine-tastings;
- A museum-day on the ‘Second Greatest Briton of all time’ (superstar Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel);
- An evening event on the story of Concorde.
My intuition proved correct. I not only enjoyed the content and learnt something new, but 90% of attendees were sociable men with plenty of QM potential.
Choose quality sites when online dating
After a certain amount of time had elapsed after my own divorce I put out experimental feelers towards online dating sites.
I tried a comparison experiment: one mass-market site, and one more niche site connected with a classy introduction agency.
The result? I had much more promising experiences with niche sites.
A tip I picked up somewhere was to be a paid member and focus on men who were paid members. From my experience these tended to be men who are intentional about a worthwhile relationship, not cheap, and not one-night-stand types.
Ask for recommendations from women of quality and investigate sites yourself.
Have good boundaries on how you will or will not be treated
You will find this will help you weed out the less quality men because they are the ones who will reject boundaries or try and make you feel you are being silly for gently but firmly holding fast to being treated with respect and consideration.
Physical boundaries
If you are looking for a serious relationship rather than a casual fling, I’d delay any physical consummation. Take your time. That will filter out a lot of men who are simply in it purely for their own gratification.
Don’t reject this as old-fashioned because: 1) the Old-Fashioned is actually a cocktail; and 2) it’s timeless advice.
It’s not just me who thinks so. It’s also the opinion of the former ‘Sex Life’ columnist of the classy
GQ magazine, Kate Taylor, who wrote
Not Tonight, Mr Right: Why Good Men Come to Girls Who Wait.
How Quality Men talk about their families
One personality trait I picked up on early in my romantic history was that when a quality man talks about his family members he shows understanding and insight into their characters, as well as respect. It suggests lack of narcissism on the one hand and an emotional intelligence on the other that make for a future healthy relationship between the two of you.
It’s one more good tip in that uniquely feminine skill: QM-spotting.
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