Singapore Helps Singles to Become Doubles

SINGAPORE — Eat your heart out, Cupid. Singapore’s singles are finding true love at state-sponsored functions.

The island-state’s government, which has launched numerous drives to change people’s behavior over the years, has turned its hand to matchmaking. And it’s working.

Official statistics indicate that more couples brought together by the government are tying the knot.

The once-ridiculed Social Development Unit (SDU), charged with getting better-educated singles together, has come out of the closet. It no longer shies away from publicity.

Critics previously labeled SDU members as “Single, Desperate and Ugly.”

Attitudes Change

“Before we were quite shy to say we are members,” said one young woman. “Now, we don’t mind.” But she, like many others, declined to give her name or have her picture taken.

Of the average 50 daily weddings in Singapore, three a day this year involved couples who met at an SDU function, official figures showed. Last year the ratio was 1 in 50.

“We are getting comprehension in the population,” Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said in August. “They know it’s not a funny joke. It has long-term implications.”

The SDU was created in 1984 after Lee voiced fears that Singapore’s talent pool was deteriorating because too many intelligent women remained unmarried and childless.

Despite public skepticism and a slow start, “Project Love,” as it was quickly dubbed, has caught on among the nation’s 22,000 single university graduates.

Some participants said a reason for its new-found success was the expansion of programs from dinner-dances and “cruises to nowhere” to smaller and less blatantly romantic activities such as computer and car-maintenance classes.

A Squash Session

A recent squash session sponsored by the agency drew 12 participants--with an even mix of sexes--who were introduced to one another and then left to themselves.

Some other activities have also been run on a do-it-yourself basis, participants said.

A declining birthrate and charges of elitism forced the government to modify its original matchmaking program, which catered only to university graduates.

Another body, the Social Development Service, was set up to look after those with less education.

Critics say the policy still smacks of discrimination because the activities are segregated by educational qualifications.

Reconciling With Reality

“If you want to marry people of the same educational group, you come to the SDU,” explained SDU head Eileen Aw. She said the SDU’s next goal was to reconcile the expectations of young singles about their potential spouses with reality.

“It comes down to rationalizing their fantasies with realism,” the prime minister said.

“Let’s settle for what we are,” he said. “You look at your brother, look at your cousins, that’s what’s on the market.”