You all laugh, but this is how my husband and I met – kind of. But it would never work these days because boys and girls are not permitted to meet in “natural” environments.
In the late 1960’s the social committee of my parents’ shul identified a need to establish a “kosher” meeting place for the youth; even at that time, popular music and film was undergoing a rapid change for the worse, and an innocent date for dinner and a movie became a potential mine-field because the content of films had become quite inappropriate. The shul responded by converting a basement room into a “youth lounge,” which would be outfitted with some tables for cards, a pool table, and a record player; the goal was to provide a place for social gatherings within the shul aside from the gym, which was the domain of the boys.
In order to raise funds for the project, the parents devised a raffle of “kosher” activities – the point was (1) to raise money for the renovation, and (2) demonstrate to us kids that there was more to life than movies and concerts (at least until the lounge was completed). The prizes included tickets to the zoo, museums, the local ice cream shop, and the skate rink, etc. The condition was that each prize consisted of two tickets and the winner had to find a date (winners were required to be post high-school, they were not encouraging high-school dating) from among the other “kids” in the shul (in our parents eyes, even college kids were “kids”).
Well, one boy who I thought was a complete nerd won tickets for a boat ride in the park. My girlfriends and I were nearly convulsing with laughter at the thought of this nebbish asking a girl for a date – he wore eyeglasses, attended city college at night, worked part-time during the day, and looked perpetually lost. While we joked about how long it would take him to fall out of the boat, he took his ticket to the mistress of ceremonies and asked whether she would intervene on his behalf in order to facilitate an introduction with one of the girls.
I nearly spilled my Coke all over my white skirt when Mrs. Goldish strode over and picked me up from the shoulder. The rest is history. Behind the glasses was a nice boy. Nothing remarkable, but we had a nice enough time and found each other’s company interesting.
So, the raffle can work.