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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"></TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead vAlign=top><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt_89 <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>9:19 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"></TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>30229.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/7258352/Dating-in-Singapore-or-how-to-fail-where-others-have-succeeded.html
Dating in Singapore – or how to fail where others have succeeded
Finding a girlfriend can be a hard slog, even when you've got a sense of humour.
Robert at a wedding. Always the usher...
Let me preface this with a few important considerations. Firstly, I am no George Clooney. Admittedly, I tend to look down at the ground when I smile and I look better in suits than shorts, but I don’t stop traffic. Not unless I decide to cross without the guidance of the green man, a crime against humanity here in Singapore.
Secondly, I am inexperienced. My past is littered with examples of unrequited love, pointless pining and disastrous misjudgments. My success rate is slightly more impressive than Gordon Brown’s attempts at smiling, and just as pretty. I am more Clouseau than Casanova. Though finding a woman here has been far easier than in the UK, keeping or understanding them has been a whole new ball game.
<!-- BEFORE ACI -->Under orders from a family that feared my disappearance into oblivion and with a driven sense of mission and newly discovered optimism, I signed up on a dating website on arrival here in 2008. I quickly discovered the most pleasing and liberating aspect of dating in this part of the world: you don’t have to prove you’re not an axe-murderer. People are very trusting here and I was pleasantly surprised to get viewed and contacted by women who barely knew me, offering telephone numbers (HPs – I did think they were brandishing bottles of brown sauce until I realised that stood for ‘hand phones’, mobiles) email addresses and suggested meeting places. And they’d seen my picture!
And so it began. I thought I’d hit the jackpot almost straight away as I started exchanging emails with a very nice, open and entertaining girl about my age (34) who liked my jokes. Ah, the Holy Grail – I made her laugh. She seemed attractive enough, although her photo did suggest that she had a lampshade attached to her cheek. However, she looked human and smiled nicely, so my rigorous selection procedure ushered her through and we met up and had dinner. It was lovely. I was charming, even if I do say so myself and the setting was great – Rochester Park. It’s a collection of colonial buildings that have been refurbished as restaurants and dressed with palm trees and tropical plants. They even have mosquito spray on hand to ensure that you are not eaten before you eat.
And so it continued. A few nice meals, trips to the movies, some shopping and ice cream, we’ve all been there. I would entertain, pay and generally be the archetypal gentleman, and I loved every minute of it. Then, inexplicably, about two months in, she decided she wasn’t looking for a relationship. "Don’t know what you’re thinking..." she pondered. No hints or clues. But she did still want to go on dates, though. Huh?
And so I came to realise a couple of things about people in Singapore. They often stop dead right in the middle of something and change direction, rather inconvenient when you are behind or alongside them. They also appear to have different ideas about what "dating" means. You see, I had been assuming, in my Western, driven, "I’m on a mission"-way, that we were going out. She had been wandering, doing a little light shopping, not really been thinking much at all. "Dates" are just meetings when people do things together, perhaps as acquaintances. We were, it seemed, friends.
It all turned out nicely for her though, as she met someone in Bali soon after and decided she wanted to marry him after three days. I was even more cheerful when I discovered that he was a 55-year-old German who bore a rather striking resemblance to me (with wrinkles). They are now married and living in Basel. Was there a lesson in all of this? If so, Freud may find it before I do. And that’s the problem here – I haven’t got a clue what is going on.
My next date (or whatever you want to call it) was a disaster. She hadn’t put a photo on her profile and it was obvious why. That wouldn’t have been such a problem if her personality had compensated for it. Unfortunately, it didn’t. I took her to a hotel restaurant – The Swissotel by Clarke Quay has a quaint poolside place that makes its own brand of crisps as well as rather nice food. She stared at me in horror as the word "hotel" headed through her ears. You see, people may be very trusting here but there is an underlying assumption held by some that most Westerners are just here for the sex. Being rather naive and inhibited, I felt a little downcast that she would think that of me and more than a little frightened at the prospect of it with her.
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Dating in Singapore – or how to fail where others have succeeded
Finding a girlfriend can be a hard slog, even when you've got a sense of humour.
Let me preface this with a few important considerations. Firstly, I am no George Clooney. Admittedly, I tend to look down at the ground when I smile and I look better in suits than shorts, but I don’t stop traffic. Not unless I decide to cross without the guidance of the green man, a crime against humanity here in Singapore.
Secondly, I am inexperienced. My past is littered with examples of unrequited love, pointless pining and disastrous misjudgments. My success rate is slightly more impressive than Gordon Brown’s attempts at smiling, and just as pretty. I am more Clouseau than Casanova. Though finding a woman here has been far easier than in the UK, keeping or understanding them has been a whole new ball game.
<!-- BEFORE ACI -->Under orders from a family that feared my disappearance into oblivion and with a driven sense of mission and newly discovered optimism, I signed up on a dating website on arrival here in 2008. I quickly discovered the most pleasing and liberating aspect of dating in this part of the world: you don’t have to prove you’re not an axe-murderer. People are very trusting here and I was pleasantly surprised to get viewed and contacted by women who barely knew me, offering telephone numbers (HPs – I did think they were brandishing bottles of brown sauce until I realised that stood for ‘hand phones’, mobiles) email addresses and suggested meeting places. And they’d seen my picture!
And so it began. I thought I’d hit the jackpot almost straight away as I started exchanging emails with a very nice, open and entertaining girl about my age (34) who liked my jokes. Ah, the Holy Grail – I made her laugh. She seemed attractive enough, although her photo did suggest that she had a lampshade attached to her cheek. However, she looked human and smiled nicely, so my rigorous selection procedure ushered her through and we met up and had dinner. It was lovely. I was charming, even if I do say so myself and the setting was great – Rochester Park. It’s a collection of colonial buildings that have been refurbished as restaurants and dressed with palm trees and tropical plants. They even have mosquito spray on hand to ensure that you are not eaten before you eat.
And so it continued. A few nice meals, trips to the movies, some shopping and ice cream, we’ve all been there. I would entertain, pay and generally be the archetypal gentleman, and I loved every minute of it. Then, inexplicably, about two months in, she decided she wasn’t looking for a relationship. "Don’t know what you’re thinking..." she pondered. No hints or clues. But she did still want to go on dates, though. Huh?
And so I came to realise a couple of things about people in Singapore. They often stop dead right in the middle of something and change direction, rather inconvenient when you are behind or alongside them. They also appear to have different ideas about what "dating" means. You see, I had been assuming, in my Western, driven, "I’m on a mission"-way, that we were going out. She had been wandering, doing a little light shopping, not really been thinking much at all. "Dates" are just meetings when people do things together, perhaps as acquaintances. We were, it seemed, friends.
It all turned out nicely for her though, as she met someone in Bali soon after and decided she wanted to marry him after three days. I was even more cheerful when I discovered that he was a 55-year-old German who bore a rather striking resemblance to me (with wrinkles). They are now married and living in Basel. Was there a lesson in all of this? If so, Freud may find it before I do. And that’s the problem here – I haven’t got a clue what is going on.
My next date (or whatever you want to call it) was a disaster. She hadn’t put a photo on her profile and it was obvious why. That wouldn’t have been such a problem if her personality had compensated for it. Unfortunately, it didn’t. I took her to a hotel restaurant – The Swissotel by Clarke Quay has a quaint poolside place that makes its own brand of crisps as well as rather nice food. She stared at me in horror as the word "hotel" headed through her ears. You see, people may be very trusting here but there is an underlying assumption held by some that most Westerners are just here for the sex. Being rather naive and inhibited, I felt a little downcast that she would think that of me and more than a little frightened at the prospect of it with her.
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:oIo:
