It’s been
reported by the Today Newspaper that Singaporeans are more open to online
dating but four in ten singles have never been on a date. The report can be
found at:
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/online-dating-singles-singapore-never-dated-survey-2015846
I will undoubtedly
get a few brick bats for telling this story but there is truth to what she
mentioned. Singaporeans have been strangely preconditioned into doing things
that everyone else might find unnatural.
As a matter of
disclosure, I am not great with picking up women or seducing them. My mother
has spent the last forty odd years complaining that I prefer to wait to be picked
up rather than chasing what I want, hence many of my relationships have ended badly.
However, I’ve always enjoyed the company of “players,” and I’ve had the good
fortune of observing them.
My “player”
friends have one thing in common – they’re good company. These guys have found
a way to be serious enough about life without being boring. As a rule, they have
decent enough careers (you don’t have to top up their bus cards) but not the extent
that the career defines them as people. These are the people that you can hang around
with in any random setting without worrying that they’re going to engage any and
every one they encounter with a monologue of their CV and inventory. Players have decent enough social skills and
when they get flirtatious with the girls, they are not crude to the point that
you worry that you might be called up in a sexual harassment suite (there is a
difference between telling a woman she looks nice in a tank top and asking her
to sit on your lap).
If you at what
I’ve just mentioned, you could argue that I’ve not mentioned anything particularly
special. However, while I’ve not mentioned anything particularly special, the ground
reality is that we have become so conditioned to deal with people in a certain
way that what should be normal social skills have become unusual.
As anyone who
has studied overseas will note – Singaporeans are great academically. We come
up top in exam tables. We outwork just about every other ethnic group in
university. Yet, once we hit the real world, the highlight of every
Singaporeans career is to work for the white boys who didn’t work as hard or do
as well in their studies. While I don’t have hard facts, I do notice that many
of the Caucasians tend to be socially more able than our local workers.
How did this happen?
I believe that a lot of it comes from the way our people have been trained from
birth. Success, we are told, is highly dependent on your academic results and
parents make it a point to see to it that their do nothing else except study. Parents
will do whatever it takes to ensure that their kids mix with other kids from
the same background and in the situation.
It goes without
saying that people brought up in this situation, will continue this behaviour
when they go to work. We have a situation in Singapore where people brag about,
they work the world’s longest hours because this is a continuation of their
school days.
This is compounded
from external factors. Property prices are constantly rising as are car prices.
Social messaging states that you need a bigger and better house and car if you
are to be regarded as anything respectable in society.
Hence, we have
a population that do well when someone else gives them a job. It goes without
saying that when it comes to things like “dating,” people don’t have time to
date or to look at anything outside the text book. The common reason why you
have people over 25 proclaiming that they’ve never had a girlfriend or still
virgins, is that they are “concentrating on their careers,” and will settle
down and have kids. Unfortunately, by the time they reach the stage of “established,”
they’re usually too old to adapt to having normal human relationships.
We shouldn’t
need to have to “teach” people how to get along or to be able to act in social
situations. Yet, this is precisely the situation that Singaporeans have been
conditioned to do. It’s time that the people be allowed to do what comes naturally
without being pressured into acquiring things that won’t make a major
difference to their lives.
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