A close friend recently asked me how I felt about Singapore’s dating pool. As a prospective newcomer to the city, he held a rightful amount of curiosity paired with a subtle dose of concern. Given this technological age, we’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to organically meet someone in the street with a simple “hello”. We hide behind social media and let our profile pages do the talking. If people want to get to know us, all they have to do is weave their way around our privacy settings to extract as much information as they can.
Cyber love (Image credit: prawny/iStock)
Whilst online dating is still heavily stigmatised as the “desperate option”, there is a definite shift in attitudes towards meeting people through a digital realm. Generation Y needed an alternative. Something trendy, cool and that “everyone was using” so no one felt ashamed for logging on and checking out the dating market. Enter Tinder.
The free social media app has taken the world by storm. Not only because it posited a less intense alternative to the app notoriously associated with casual sexual escapades, i.e. Grindr, but because it gave its users enough wiggle room to justify it as simply ‘getting out there’ and socialising. Now, that is not to say Tinder is immune to its fair share of predation. One only has to flick through the amusing Instagram account @tindernightmares, to realise that their Tinder experiences could have been much, much worse.
For the unfamiliar, Tinder is a hybrid social media cum dating app that, using a combination of your geographical and Facebook information (your friends and interests), generates a prospective list of eligible suitors for you to filter through, strike up an online conversation with, and if all goes well, meet in person.
What is interesting about the app is the ability to manipulate your search preference settings. Not only can you select obvious categories like gender and ideal age range but the geographical parameters too. You can scan all the eligible bachelors/bachelorettes on the human Pinterest board up to a radius of 100 miles, but no more. Yes, Tinder wasn’t built for users to pick up long distance relationships, but does it indirectly encourage us to narrow our options to those within our immediate vicinity?
In a city like London, in both its sheer size and horrendous transport costs, it makes financial sense. You are not realistically going to take the underground from South Kensington to the outer boroughs unless you’re sure it will be worth your time. Come to think of it, perhaps there is a socio-economical logic to it, considering you might hold preconceptions of people living in certain areas (hello, hipsters…or maybe chavs?). Looking for a rich banker? Plonk yourself somewhere around Canary Wharf and whittle that distance setting down to say, five miles!
When in a city like Singapore, the setting becomes a moot point. On such a tiny, red dot, you don’t really even get the choice to ‘broaden your horizons’ too much! Yes, that means no potential suitor (or predator) is too far, though there is a catch, because your dating pool has just become much, much shallower!
One burning question remains. Who is this setting essentially for? Is it intended for those who simply cannot bear any form of commute to meet with their potential soul mate? Or is it less noble, for the people craving their ‘afternoon delight’ but are willing to settle for a KFC chicken bucket versus a slow-braised coq au vin.
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