I was recently talking with a friend and we happened to talk about the topic of singles.
And he said that as one grows older, it gets much harder to find good single girls around.
According to him, finding a good, beautiful, loving girl in her late twenties who is still single and available is like finding a job opening that is relatively enjoyable, has a great work environment, doesn’t require you to work long hours, has fantastic career advancement opportunities, and pays you a starting pay of $8,000.
Or like finding a huge and beautiful bungalow in an opulent district, freehold, but selling at a mere pittance.
In other words, it’s not impossible…but you can bet that there are 10,000 people out there who would have jumped at it way before you did.
He put it rather cynically. He said that honestly speaking, if someone is late-twenties/early-or-mid-thirties and still unattached…then there usually has to be some catch.
It’s market forces at the end of the day, he said. The good ones are always taken. It’s a free market system.
And it seems to be much easier to find a good, eligible single guy in his early-to-mid thirties than it is to find a good, beautiful, eligible single girl in her early-to-mid thirties.
Or at least that’s what he says.
What do you think?
…
I was just thinking about the whole thing.
Man was created to look for a wife, and he was programmed to choose the wife which bore the physical attributes which most strongly suggested to him that she would make a good child-bearer.
In other words, the physical attractiveness (build, healthy appearance, child-bearing hips, etc) of a woman were highly regarded by men.
In the same way, a woman was programmed to choose a husband which would be able to provide her with i) a sense of security and ii) an ability to materially provide for the entire family.
Hence, to a woman, a man’s emotional qualities and perhaps wealth is of the utmost importance.
Therefore, I think it is definitely no fault of anyone’s that men are naturally attracted to physically-beautiful women and women are naturally attracted to confident, wealthy and emotionally-attractive men.
I think any guy that says that looks are totally NOT a factor when choosing a female partner is most probably not being totally truthful.
But the thing is, I don’t necessarily think there is anything wrong with admitting that we guys take looks into account when considering members of the opposite sex.
In the same way that a girl can say that she is attracted to a guy because of his humour, his confidence, his patience, his wittiness…I think a guy is perfectly allowed to say that he is attracted to a girl because she is beautiful (maybe more in the physical sense).
It’s all about attraction anyway, isn’t it?
How in the world can two people marry if they are not the least bit attracted to one another?
So, (apart from the fact that both should be Christians) I believe that at the end of the day, a guy must believe in his heart that he is truly attracted to the person he intends to marry.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying looks are the ONLY factor. I’m saying we cannot totally discount the looks factor for guys.
That’s just the way we were programmed.
I’m not saying that we guys only want to go for beautiful girls. That’s not my drift.
What I’m saying is that the looks factor is always something that is hanging at the back of our heads…and it is something which we cannot totally ignore.
Ultimately, people do not marry blindly.
We, as limited human beings, marry because of certain reasons.
Yes, of course…”love” is the reason, but this love is hardly unconditional.
We’re human after all, aren’t we?
haha… jem, i foresee that this entry is going to be flooded with comments again.
here’s a theory…. desirable ladies are willing to cut their losses and get out of a relationship if they don’t see a fit (since they believe that they can find someone better). if you know the economic term frictional unemployment, what i am driving at here is “frictional unattachment”.
i believe that there are great single ladies who are in their late twenties or early thirties. off the top of my head, i can already name a few. the problem is, as you have correctly highlighted, they may not stay single too long. at the end of the day, it is about being there at the right time.
to me, the problem is not that there are not enough great single girls out there. perhaps if you don’t think too much about the end result (i.e. getting hitched), but just build great friendships with any girl that is willing to befriend you (most girls are nice and friendly), then you will realize that there are tons of fantastic single ladies out there (either her bf unfortunately turns out to be a jerk later on or she introduces her good friend to you).
by the way, why this obsession with ladies in their mid-twenties and early thirties? once a guy crosses the age of 18, the lower bound for the age of their partner is fixed at 18…. age is but just a number…
Yup, this kind of post sure draw comments one, haha!
Ooh…”frictional unattachment”! I love the term! I totally agree!!!
“by the way, why this obsession with ladies in their mid-twenties and early thirties? once a guy crosses the age of 18, the lower bound for the age of their partner is fixed at 18…. age is but just a number…”
Oh, I was referring to that age range (i.e. around 27-36) because I feel that girls who are 26 and below tend to be a bit more focussed on other things in life, such as perhaps getting honours in Uni, or finding a good job, or building the firm foundations to a good career.
It is usually once they pass 26 that they start to think about wanting to find a life partner and settle down and start a family.
Hence, I think that when both males and females pass the age of 26, they will start to shift into “I’m looking for a life partner” mode, cos the biological clock will start ticking away.
That’s just what I think lah.
Chin Hon and Jeremy: I know a lot of good christian single women. Problem is that they are all like a year or two older than you boys, and so they are most likely A LOT more mature in thought. :P
Maybe the solution to your problems is patience. Wait a few more years for the <26 year-old-girls to grow older and you'd be able to have your pick. ;)
To be honest, I believe that there are more single women out there than single (straight) men. Someone should do research on this… (hint hint)
“Chin Hon and Jeremy: I know a lot of good christian single women. Problem is that they are all like a year or two older than you boys, and so they are most likely A LOT more mature in thought. :P”
Hmm, I actually think older girls would find younger guys who have a sense of child-like wonder rather appealing, no? Haha!
“Maybe the solution to your problems is patience. Wait a few more years for the <26 year-old-girls to grow older and you'd be able to have your pick. ;)"
Er, no…not a good idea, cos who is to say the girls wouldn't have been taken already in the meantime?
"To be honest, I believe that there are more single women out there than single (straight) men. Someone should do research on this… (hint hint)"
Chin Hon…your next thesis!
1stly..your friend has not met me. I’m sure he’d change his mind then. ;)
2ndly, when the phrase “love is blind” was coined..i don’t think it meant blind to one’s ugliness or whatever…but more of one’s character.
3rdly, i agree with CH’s comments… and yah, its about being there at the right time.
4thly, look beyond age limitations.
Hi Jeremy, this is an interesting blog entry.
However I think it is not too healthy to be too intellectual in this area. Not that we do not need to think when it comes to love…..just that I feel that if we think too much, we set up unnecessary barriers for ourselves eg. they must be >26 etc…
Coz I think it is a natural thing. There’s no need to be too intellectual. We don’t have to be a professor to fall in love….
If one is still single & is on a lookout for a very long while, it may be that he/she is not looking at the right place. Of course people will say that it may not be the right time, but then again they themselves know best whether it is the right time or they are kidding themselves (I am not talking abt things from God’s perspective, His timing etc…)
At the end of the day, I feel that those who talk or think too much about BGR will tend to “lose out” some bit to those who take initiatives. (In my humble opinion)
So why not JUST DO IT ?
Wah kat, got friends never intro hor… tsk tsk… no wonder me and jem still single…
Kat, i believe that the ratio of guys to girls in Singapore is about 1. Assuming that homosexuals do not form a significant portion of the population, then the number of single guys should be around the same as the number of single ladies.
Shit… I got duped… I thought you need a PhD to fall in love… Haha… yup Jerron, I agree with you. So long as the girl is pretty, chase first. After you get the girl then think (or worry) later.
“Oh, I was referring to that age range (i.e. around 27-36) because I feel that girls who are 26 and below tend to be a bit more focussed on other things in life…”
Ok, I’m 50-50 on this. Being 1 yr short of 26 myself, yes I am what u said above but at the same time I DO THINK ABT THE FUTURE. Alot.
However, if it doesn’t happen then so be it, I’ll just pour more effort into focusing on myself till God brings another one into my life :)
But yeah, I think I’d get more kan cheong when I blow out the 26 candles off my cake ;p
Methinks there r
more single ladies than single men BY CIRCUMSTANCE;
more single men than single ladies BY CHOICE.
btw, ur blog posts on this topic r getting more insightful n “intense”, eh ;p
TSL: It is my friend’s loss for not knowing someone like you! =)
Jerron: No lah, not purposely want to be intellectual. Just sharing my random musings with you all, see what you all think about it lor. As always, you guys have lots of thoughts to share about these topics too, ha!
Chin Hon: Yes, I agree. Logically speaking, assuming there is a 50-50 split of males to females, there should always be a roughly even number of singles.
(There one reason I can think of that supports the argument that there might be more single females around would be that females have a longer life expectancy than males, haha!)
“Methinks there r
more single ladies than single men BY CIRCUMSTANCE;
more single men than single ladies BY CHOICE.”
WOW! Well said! I couldn’t have said it better! I totally agree 1000%. (In fact, I had almost wanted to write something like that in the blog post, but didn’t in the end…)
“btw, ur blog posts on this topic r getting more insightful n “intense”, eh ;p”
Got meh? No lah…occassionally I will come up with these kind of posts to generate passionate discussion lor, haha!
Haha… B, so u saying we guys are not doing our job lah…
Good good, keep these posts a-coming… I haven’t thought about such stuff for a longgg time ;p
chinhon – I think u’re being over-sensitive. If one hasn’t found The Right Gurl, how to start crackin’ on the job… agree? ;ppp
wow B, i totally agree with everything that you have said!
Thank you thank you ;p
Nope, B thank you for understanding us ;)
Darn, I shouldn’t be siding with the fellas!!! Oh whatever.
Wow, you guys…always so full of comments whenever I write about “relationships” topics!
You know, I just made a Google search on “frictional unattachment” and arrived here. I think I coined or at least used that term a month earlier. :P
http://wa31closed2009.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/x-unattachment/