Saturday, November 20, 2010

Loveless in Singapore

I was playing online with some of my CoH buddies, when one of them, a Singaporean, tells me that Vietnamese girls are very popular in Singapore. Unless he has reason to lie (like me hedging the truth that I am a very violent chick who loves strategy games), he is pretty representative of the general Singaporean male population.

As my age and that of my peers approach the dreaded 30s (where you sit down and make that dreaded consideration of whether you like the way your life is shaping up to be so far, and most of the time, not liking it), the single ones among us all start to either give up on finding true love or evolve their standards just by a tiny bit to find jemand to love. Or they can be like my classmates and still sit around hoping for Prince Charming to ride his horse into town.

I was walking with my neighbour's daughter to the MRT one day when I was very late for work. She told me that she wanted to buy her colleague's flat just above our train station, and that she had teasingly asked him to wait for her for 5 years.

I looked at her.

She is a svelte and pretty lady of just 30 who did very well in school and has a secure and probably well-paying job. If I were a dude, I would chase her myself. I had once considered introducing her to my uni buddy (who is now in a relationship with a foreign girl) but because we had crashed out a previous time when I introduced him one of my Prince-Charming-awaiting classmates, I was too scared to do so (also her mom is my mom's friend and the fortune-teller said this lady would have 2 opportunities in love. Since she fried one on her own, I wasn't about to help her fry the other one).

And she was already waiting for herself to turn 35 when the government allows her to buy a flat of her own. I was stunned. That was also the reason why I later asked my colleagues in the day, when they would give up on love.

My neighbour's daughter is representative of the Singaporean girl. In her 20s, she sets her standards for Mr Right and waits for him to show up, and when those with lesser credentials appear, they are either turned away or tried and tested but to no avail. When she reaches her 30s, she either has to tune her standards so that now a younger man will do, as long as he looks mature (I have noticed that the women tune them by only a tiny bit and not alot) or she just forgets it and waits to turn 35. I have met other girls around my age who have tried and loved but in the meantime are also thinking of that flat at 35.

I asked B1 what would he have done if he had turned 30 and still remained single. Would he have gone for a foreign bride? He replied that he would have gone for a Singaporean chick in her 20s and then if all else failed, then a foreign bride. When men around us reach 30 and start giving up on looking for local girls their age or younger because they think we have too high standards and yet don't try to meet them ourselves, what chances do a woman in her 30s have in love?

I find it very sad that a man at 30 (I have seen younger men tell me that too!) that a foreign bride is not a bad idea. For him to even consider it, it's like better to have a bride than no bride at all. A Singaporean man is more pragmatic than his female counterpart, for him, a woman who has poorer qualifications and background might even be better because she might demand lesser of him and deliver more. But most Singaporean women would rather wait for The One or the Other One then marry someone who does not meet most of her expectations. After all, she is usually a career girl or at least self-sufficient. If it does not happen, then it does not happen.

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