Singapore - Click here for love

3 in 5 S'poreans polled have used dating websites to find love, and more say the old stigma is fading.

More singles are searching for love online, say experts here.

A survey last year by local dating agency Lunch Actually shows that 62 per cent of Singaporeans polled used an online dating service, up from 58 per cent in 2010. The survey had 640 local responses, in addition to others from Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Online dating involves uploading information and pictures on a portal where users are matched or meet via chats or online games.

Last week, a romance between 24-year-old Miss Elsie Lie and her boyfriend hit the headlines when the former was brutally murdered in her Jurong West home.

Her 38-year-old boyfriend has been charged with murder.

While it is unclear how the two met, Miss Lie was a member of some 10 different networking sites, where she stated that she was "still single" and hoping to meet new friends.

The rise in online dating is not surprising, considering how much time people spend on social networking sites, says sociologist Bussarawan Puk Teerawichitchainan.

"Technology is replacing the role of the older generation, who traditionally picked out partners for the younger generation," says the assistant professor at Singapore Management University.

Online dating's stigma - that those who use dating websites are desperate and can't find partners in real life - is disappearing as more engage online, she says.

In a global poll of 10,976 users across 19 countries carried out by the BBC World Service in 2010, 30 per cent of web users regard the Internet as a good place to find a romantic partner.

Ms Violet Lim, who founded local dating portals Eteract and eSynchrony in 2007 and 2010 respectively, says people log on for different reasons.

She says: "Some might have found little success in traditional dating methods, such as through work and friends."

Those with active social lives see it as another chance to widen their social circle, she adds. Ms Lim's sites, two of innumerable online dating options available to Singaporeans, now have 80,000 and 15,000 users respectively.

Eteract offers speed dating via instant messaging, webcam, and online games. ESynchrony, on the other hand, matches people through a personality profile quiz.

Users' ages range between 21 and 45 years and they pay anything from $24 to $600, depending on the services signed up for.

There are tricks to getting noticed online. For example, an attractive picture is key. "If a girl posts a good photo of herself, chances are she would be approached quickly," says Ms Lim, adding that men make up 60 per cent of her websites' membership.

An interesting profile also helps increase your chances.

"If the profile comes across as boring, the likelihood of getting responses is also lower," she says.

Occasionally, online matches do end up in marriages. Local dating site, Who Works Around You, was founded in 2007 and has about 5,000 users. Its founder, Ms Betty Goh, says she receives about two wedding invitations a year from online matches.

benitaay@sph.com.sg

Date smart

Don't divulge too much information about where you live and work to people online. When you finally want the transition from an online friendship to a real-world meeting, arrange to meet at a public place.

When you first meet your online friend, let a family member or friend know about the date. Get them to call you 30 minutes into the scheduled date to ensure everything is fine.

Do some checks, for instance at the Registry of Marriages website, to ascertain if someone who says he is single, is really single.

It is not healthy to have indefinite virtual relationships. Try to make the transition to a real-life meeting within a month if you live in the same country.

(Tips from founders of dating websites, Betty Goh and Violet Lim)

Setting search limits to screen for wife

Before meeting his wife in 2006, Mr Balazs Fogoly thought Internet dating was for losers. "My perception then was that only really desperate people use it," says the 36-year-old Hungarian, who is now based in Singapore.

But anecdotes from friends quickly changed his mind.

"Some of my friends knew people who met their significant others over the Internet, and they weren't the geek types but pretty outgoing people.

"So the Internet became an additional source for me to find the right one," adds the trader.

Then a Master's student who was studying in Singapore, he signed up with international dating website match.com in the hope of finding someone special.

"The only people I knew were my classmates, so I was open to meeting new people and seeing where it went - whether I would meet someone I could spend the rest of my life with," he says.

It was a decision he never regretted. Two to three days after signing up, he chanced upon the profile of a Singaporean woman, who went on to captivate his heart.

Mr Balazs says he used "search limits" to screen through potential romantic interests on the site.

"It was important that she held at least a university degree, looked pleasant and had a kind personality," he says.

Ms Sylvia Cheong, 30, fit the bill. Just two weeks after they began chatting online, the two met up for a lunch date at City Hall.

She admits that her husband's looks did not impress at first - "He had a big beard and wasn't that tall. I'd say he wasn't exactly my type," she says with a laugh.

But it didn't take long for her to change her mind.

"I really liked how he treated me. He was decent, very homey and had good values, and I felt very comfortable with him."

The business owner says she had a clear idea of the kind of man she was looking for when she signed up for the dating website.

"At the time, I didn't have a very big social circle, and I knew that I didn't want a typical Singaporean man who fussed over everyday details.

"I was looking for someone with a world view, an open mind, good moral values and who got along with my family, which is noisy and boisterous," she says.

Unlike her husband, she was open to online dating right from the start.

She says with a chuckle: "I can't remember when I signed up for the website, perhaps when it first started? "My friends knew I was on the website and I was very comfortable with it.

I was already chatting on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) networks before joining the dating site, so it was a natural transition." Before meeting Mr Balazs, she had met up with several other potential matches after getting to know them through the website, but never experienced the right chemistry.

"I just didn't sense that they were the one," she says.

It was a different story with her husband. Six weeks after meeting in person, she agreed to be his girlfriend, and in 2008, he popped the question.

The following year, the two got hitched.

Plans for children are on the cards.

Nice 'medical student' used friend's ID

Looking for love online can result in beautiful endings, but it has its downside.

Tracy, a civil servant, who requests we withhold her surname, recalls her own ventures on the Internet Relay Chat, popular when she was in university back in the mid-90s.

A guy described himself as a fellow university student (the identity he used indicated that he was a medical student), a churchgoer, and "seemed quite nice".

He even sent her some photos by e-mail and one by post.

She was 18, and curious enough to want to meet him, says the 36-year-old. But each time they were supposed to meet, there was an excuse. "Something would go wrong, his family, a test, something. I didn't think very much of it," she says.

She is still single.

Eventually, she found out that he had assumed the identity of a friend online. The person communicating with her for more than two months was not a medical student.

She cut off contact and it turned her off online dating entirely.

According to Ms Violet Lim, who founded local dating portals Eteract and eSynchrony, people tend to be "looser" with information about themselves.

"Men tend to be taller, women tend to be lighter than they actually are." She says most people who sign up for dating websites are genuine, but she still does her checks.

Checks are important because there have been cases where things have gone disastrously wrong.

A search in the newspaper archives reveal scams where at least three women in Singapore were conned of more than $8,000.

According to the reports, the women had fallen for foreigners who befriended them online. The foreign men arranged to visit them or proposed to them.

On the day of their supposed arrivals, however, the men called to say they had been detained by local authorities for carrying a huge amount of cash.

The men, who claimed they were British, Nigerian or of some other foreign nationality, then begged for a transfer of a sum of money to a foreign bank account to secure their release.

Once the cash was deposited, contact abruptly ceased.

Benita Aw Yeong,

The New Paper

AsiaOne

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