All photos by Nadine Lee for RICE Media unless otherwise stated.
I’ve been holding out the entire year for a romantic Christmas conclusion to 2024, but at this point… I don’t think it’s happening.
The couples around me in university are getting hitched, pregnant, or both. Nothing wrong with that. I’m happy for them.
But as I scroll past happy couples announcing their engagements, it does make me think: Should I be worried that I’m still single? Or do I just throw my lot in with the Singaporeans who stay single by choice? I respect those who’ve made up their minds, but I haven’t.
Whatever. I’m tired of waiting for love. If love won’t find me, I’ll find it myself.
Even if I have to rent a date to get it, because I guess dating in Singapore’s gotten that hard.
There’s no better time than the present to set up the most romantic date I can muster.
I may not be religious, but there’s something about the Christmas season that just puts a little pep in my agnostic step.
The way Christmas is celebrated in Singapore feels more than just a religious celebration at this point, anyway. The lights at Orchard Road, the inescapable jingles wherever you go, the massive Christmas trees in malls—they form a remarkably consumerist picture of what the holiday season is. Between that and people worrying over whether they’re enjoying Christmas enough, it could feel a little contrived.
But I suppose contrivance is just part and parcel of being Singaporean. There’s nothing natural about living in a metropolis with no natural resources, just as there’s nothing natural about snow at the equator.
Let’s dial the contrivance dial up to eleven. For my fake date, I decide to go to Christmas Wonderland. If happy couples are shipping off to Christmas Wonderland every year, perhaps I too can find some semblance of yuletide joy.
And who knows? Maybe I am really too jaded. Maybe, despite the artificiality and gloss, I’ll still be able to find something real.
The Setup
I head to Rentbabe.com to scout for potential dates.
Rentbabe actually looks a little bit like a dating app. The profiles are sorted in the same way. I guess it’s really like a dating website–the key difference being that on Rentbabe, I’m definitely getting a date. I’m paying for one.
After scrolling a little, I land on The One. He calls himself ‘Thepanda’. I assume that’s not his birth name.
I’m right. Over text, he says his name is Jon.
Our conversation is quite no-fuss–I tell him I’m doing an article for work. He says, “Okay”.
If this were a real date, embarked on after tentative dating app messages, I’d worry more about how I look and how I come across. Pre-date jitters are pretty intense, and I’ve done some pretty drastic things to remedy them. Once, before grabbing coffee with someone, I spent an hour shaving my entire body.
I don’t feel the same compulsion this time. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a fake date, so the stakes are inherently lower. There’s comfort in inauthenticity.
Pretty Privilege
As we get our tickets scanned, I hear the following heartrending, sickening exchange between a couple. You know when you see a couple on public transport coiled around each other like a pair of snakes? Yeah, they look like that. I watch them tell each other:
“You have pretty privilege.”
“No, you have handsome privilege lah.”
I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m not sure I want to find out, so I walk a little quicker.
I get to know Jon a little better. As luck would have it, he’s a photography hobbyist. This is good, because when I asked if I was getting photographers attached for this article, my editor simply laughed me off.
Between my phone not cooperating with me and my general aesthetic ineptitude, I contemplated resigning.
Luckily, I have Jon. He helps me wrangle my camera (that is, a Samsung Galaxy S23+) and teaches me some fancy new terms, like ‘ISO’ and ‘shutter speed’. He explains what they mean, but the information dribbles out of my other ear.
We join a queue to take photos under a bauble-shaped thing. In front of us is a woman who’s all dolled up, photographer in tow. You know what? Good for her.
In contrast to the couples who’d gone up before us, we don’t make any physical contact while posing for a photo. Jon had sheepishly told me earlier: “Just to be safe, let’s not touch”. It’s in line with the guidelines I’d read on Rentbabe.
I’m not looking to cause any misunderstandings either, so I suggest that we just throw up peace signs for our photo. Jon promptly leaves me out to dry by keeping his hands by his sides.
The Ordeal of Being Known
I’ve always thought Christmas Wonderland was a couple thing, but the families around me prove otherwise. A little girl almost trips over me while running to her father.
Jon and I make our way to the centrepiece light-up, and I go through the mortifying ordeal of looking for someone to help take a photo. Jon, who’s been patient with my journalistic needs, laughs and tells me he’ll leave me to it.
Five minutes later, after desperately looking around, I find a woman kind enough to help me out. I’m trembling with adrenaline when I thank her for helping me clinch my second couple photo.
I recall a married colleague telling me she was thankful to be done with dating. This must be why.
I’m not even on a ‘real’ date, but I still feel that same rush of anxiety from putting myself out there despite my attempt at nonchalance. It’s easy to confidently flirt with someone and keep things light and casual.
It’s another thing entirely to wear your heart on your sleeve and put in genuine effort to make things work.
Inflation, rising costs of living, career stress? Pfft. None of that is as petrifying as fully committing to a serious relationship.
The Ordeal of Being Known
I strike up a conversation with four guys playing a carnival game.
“So you guys are just here as friends,” I say, naive to the reality of the situation.
They look at each other furtively for a moment before rearranging themselves–one of them slings his arm around his boyfriend. Silly me, these four are here on a double date!
I’ve never been a fan of double dates. I once said to my best friend: “If I ever suggest we go on a double date, you need to kick me hard.”
It just feels like the most humiliating thing to let my friends see how I behave around someone I like. It’s just another facet of being a perennially-afraid-of-vulnerability Singaporean—the mortifying ordeal of being known.
Some refuse therapy because they might realise something about themselves; some are perfectionists because they fear criticism; some would rather ghost someone than talk it out.
Me? I’ll subject my friends to all the raunchy details of my sex life, but God forbid they know I like being hugged and kissed.
It kind of goes hand-in-hand with a fear of authenticity. Of course Singaporeans engage in public displays of the holiday season, and of course we’d pressure ourselves to make the holidays feel magical. We’re not really used to any alternative.
Despite my personal reservations about double dates, the guys I talk to are happy. They chat easily among themselves and razz each other, as friends do. The only hint that they’re a pair of couples is the way they lean into their respective partners.
If this is what a double date looks like, then maybe I don’t hate double dates. Maybe the problem lies with me and my discomfort with authenticity—these guys are happy with each other and comfortable in their expression. I admire that.
The group declines to be identified but gamely suggests I take a picture of their shoes to commemorate our meeting.
“Should we make a star with our shoes? Like in primary school?” One of them suggests.
Another one objects: “That’s not a star, that’s a diamond!”
They’re all kinda tall, so the photo I take as I stand on my tiptoes isn’t very good.
Bidding them goodbye, I look back to see Jon deep in conversation with a worker operating a games stall.
He’d apparently decided to make good on the furtive suggestion I put forth earlier: that we try to do that couple thing where one of them wins a prize for the other at a carnival.
When I mentioned it earlier, he laughed and said he’d try his best. Clearly, he was downplaying it because now, he shows me the two stuffed ducks he’s won.
I won’t lie; my heart does flutter at this, if not for the earnest delight Jon wears on his face. It’s the closest thing I’ve come to falling in love—or, if the word’s too strong, a tickle of fondness—all night. Borne of an unscripted moment, at that.
Single in Singapore
We stop to get (bottled) drinks. Jon asks me if I’ve got the bill, which strikes me as odd—I’d assumed it was a given. A holdover from his own experiences with heterosexual dating culture, I suspect.
Guess I’m a woman breaking into the male-dominated field of paying $3 for a bottle of green tea for a date.
I ask him how he’s feeling about the date so far.
“It’s my first time being rented,” Jon confesses, laughing.
In terms of his actual romantic life, Jon has participated in some matchmaking events over the years since his previous relationship ended in 2022. He says that it’s mostly to get his family off his back–like many other Singaporeans, he gets his fair share of judgement from family over being single.
Personally, though, he is fine with being single.
Jon muses: “A lot of people are alone now. But for me, I look for other lonely people to be lonely with.”
This means going out for dinner with his friends and spending time with them when he can.
I don’t really get the impression that he’s unhappy. He seems content living life as a single man in his late twenties. He’s proud of the friendships he has—it’s more than some proponents of the male loneliness epidemic can say, I’d wager.
“Honestly, friendships are a bit more important to me. You can end a relationship anytime, but good friendships go on for years and years–I’ve known one of my friends for 11 years and counting.”
Here, Jon reminisces a little about his uni days: “Back then, weekdays were spent studying, then weekends drink, drink, drink. Now, it’s a bit different. Weekdays are spent at work, then weekends I sleep all the way.”
Now that most of his friends are married or otherwise attached, things are even more different than they were.
“I can’t deny not feeling lonely during the couple-y times of the year, like Valentines’ Day, or National Girlfriend or Boyfriend Day,” he says.
“So yeah, I do feel lonely sometimes. And when my single friends tell me, ‘Hey, I got a partner’, I say ‘shit’ because they might disappear anytime soon. It happens.”
I ask: “So you’re really not worried about being alone?”
“I was alone for 25 years [before my previous relationship],” Jon quips. “What’s another 5?”
‘Tis the Season
And it’s not like Jon doesn’t have plans. He wants to travel around the world—places he’s read about in books but never seen in person.
“Hopefully before I turn 30, because I think that’s when all the pains start setting in.”
If I were 30, I might be offended. But I’m 22, so I laugh and agree.
I think it’s worth mentioning that being single in Singapore really isn’t that terrible. It might feel terrible for those of us caught in the upheaval of young adulthood and the dash to secure certainty for ourselves. It feels worse when Christmas rolls around, when the cultural focus on togetherness and family celebrations highlights the absence of a partner to spend it with.
It’s a confusing world, and we live in confusing times; I can’t fault people who find safety in a partner.
We can still grow without a partner—in fact, I think we should. I think Jon’s figured it out; it’s reassuring to me, because it means I’ll figure it out too.
But to properly figure it out, I’ll have to be okay with being authentic. I can’t expect to find real love on a fake date, as nice as Jon is.
Look, I don’t want to be the cornball saying everyone’s so fake these days, bro. But when we care more about appearances—when we retreat into the shadow of what looks good rather than what feels good—we’re not doing ourselves any favours.
It doesn’t help that our worries are so very unprecedented and so isolating. I don’t think our caveman ancestors were worrying about work-life balance, generational trauma, or what career path they should choose after graduation. Or the concept of renting a date to visit a Christmas spectacle.
I suppose I can find solace in knowing that I’m not alone. Alongside me, Singapore is going through her own growing pains. We’re transitioning into another era of leadership and trying to define what it means to be a country beyond being rich and clean.
It would be nice if we could skip this awkward, gangly adolescence altogether. But that’s not how life works. We can’t fake it till we make it; we actually have to think about what makes us tick, what makes us happy, and what fulfils us.
Because you know what they say: The only way out is through.
