"I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all those" (7:28). What is the Preacher saying?

These are the Preacher's words, and the book says so in the middle of them: "says the Preacher" (7:27). They come in his account of a search: "my heart sought to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things" (7:25). In 7:26 he says, "I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and traps, whose hands are chains" (7:26), and the verse goes on, "Whoever pleases God shall escape from her; but the sinner will be ensnared by her" (7:26). Then he speaks of seeking "to find an explanation" (7:27), "which my soul still seeks, but I have not found" (7:28), and says, "I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all those" (7:28). The verses don't say what he was looking for in the one man, or among the thousand. The last verse gives what he says he has only found: "that God made mankind upright; but they search for many inventions" (7:29). The woman of 7:26 and of 7:28 is ishah in Hebrew, and Ecclesiastes has the word once more, where the WEB gives it as wife: "Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity" (9:9). These notes quote the verses as the text has them, draw no teaching from them about women or men, apply them to no one today, and pass no verdict on the Preacher.