When I Was Young

From TODAY, News, I Say
Friday July 25, 2008

ANSLEY NG

I AM almost ashamed to step into the video rental store near my home on a Saturday night alone. It is like an admission that I am single at 29 and a loser without a date.

But I am increasingly seeing other lone men browsing the shelves, too.

Sure, Pete’s girlfriend could be having a girls’ night out and Siong’s wife might be busy making dinner, but I’d like to think that these men, in their 20s and 30s, are single and, like me, not doing too much about to change that.

While there have been a mountain of suggestions about how to get Singaporeans to make babies, the single’s problem — one that has been receiving national attention lately — concerns the precursor to procreation: We have trouble meeting new people. Specifically, candidates who could turn out to be Ms Right or Mr Right.

Singles here, apparently, want to get hitched but the majority bemoan the lack of chances (or skills) to socialise, according to survey findings unveiled last week by the National Population Secretariat.

I know people around my age group who have given up trying. While I’m not one of those – yet – my attitude is, “I am really keen, but I won’t try very hard” and I suspect many other busy working singles think that way too. Call it inertia, if you will.

So it would be interesting to see what measures the Government unveils next month to help the singles-networking process along, and how different these will be from its early attempts at playing Cupid.

I refer, of course, to its Social Development Unit (SDU) which went into semiretirement in 2006 and passed its bow and quiver of arrows on to private matchmakers — which it now accredits — probably after realising it could no longer keep up with a more sophisticated and demanding market of single, young professionals.

There were, at last count, 30 of these dating agencies compared to 10 just two years ago, and the industry’s fecundity suggests more people are receptive to turning to one for help.

Still, too many younger men and women think the only place they can make new friends is at a noisy club or bar, and thus limit their chances. Or, their excuse is that that they are too busy with work to explore other avenues.

And while dating agencies may have glammed up their image, I daresay they, just like the SDU before them, still encounter resistance from those (like me) who feel only desperate people sign up and “I am not desperate, what”.

So, here’s my idea.

Have the push could come from the workplace, where many singles of marriageable age spend a lot of their time.

The National Family Council or another government agency could provide companies with incentives to pack their single employees off to dating agencies. In the same way that they send staff for training courses, employers could stipulate a number of hours that its single employees have to clock per quarter attending events arranged by a dating agency, like lunches, cocktails, outings. (Don’t laugh — yes, the situation may have gotten that bad.)

Companies could also be allowed to dip into the Manpower Ministry’s $20-million Work-Life Works! Fund, to organise monthly drinks sessions or outings at which their single staff can meet people from other firms. They could be from the same industry or just share the same building.

Even if no romantic links are forged, hey, at least their business or professional circle is widened.

Take-up of the fund, set up in August 2004 to help companies promote worklife harmony, has jumped from 160 in 2006 to 400 this year, so there is mounting interest among employers to ensure workers have a happy balance in life — by extension, one would expect better productivity and retention rates. Why not broaden that balance to include singles’ socialising needs?

But that’s for the future, hopefully.

Until my company helps to hook me up with other singles — say, from one of the legal or financial firms in our office building — would any one (female, preferably) care to join me for some tortilla chips, Chardonnay and Dr Zhivago this Saturday night?