So, Lunch Actually surveyed the dating habits and preferences of single people in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, and the findings weirded us out a little.
First, the (sort of) good news. True to form, Singaporeans are as pragmatic as ever, with both men and women desiring partners with equal or greater incomes than themselves. It’s heartening to see that men are sucking it up and getting less turned-off by better-educated women—maybe the latter’s higher earning power has some aphrodisiac properties. Also notable is the growing phenomenon of successful career women being idealistic about their partners. If their dates don’t tick all the boxes on their Dream Boyfriend checklists, then they’d rather stay single, CEO Violet Lim relates.
We started getting really worried when we found out that only 37% of Singaporean women and 32% of men were willing to date someone of another ethnicity, compared to 63% and 65% of our peers in the much less multi-racial Hong Kong. Yikes.
We also learnt that men are instantly attracted to pretty faces and “non-aggressive”, ladylike demeanors, upon which Ms Lim advised the women in attendance to care for their appearance and play up their femininity. (Like we didn’t already get that memo 50 times a day from mass media already.) Whatever happened to just being yourself? Playing girly seems to be the equivalent of a macho swagger—when it’s authentic it can be hot; in other cases it’s most decidedly not.
In any case, all this only renders us even more determined to find out if our untamed visage would really be all that appalling to strangers, so watch out for future dating adventures.
For now, read more about our dating escapades at Machicon, Lovestruck and The Vault.
