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.
