Single Lady

One week on, I still find myself lamenting the demise of the single Singaporean woman's voice after celebrity journalist (to me, at least) Sumiko Tan becomes Mrs Quek Suan Shiau next month.  In pro-family Singapore, where table-for-one is deemed a social faux pas, where even the YOG mascots come in a pair - Lyo and Merly, I reckon it is, thus, not difficult to see where I'm coming from.

Undeniably, my obssession over this piece of news is but over a selfish reason: I am a single Singaporean woman and Sumiko Tan used to represent me where uncontrollable screaming children in public should be tamed and perambulators are possibly a type of road hazard.  Albeit the sarcasm that, quote and unquote, "There's hope for the single woman past her prime!", what is it about women and the need for society to get them married?  Yes, yes, but for all the economic rationale we'd all learnt in secondary school about human resource, productivity and the need to sustain the economy, I couldn't help but wonder if this is enough a justification to give the thumbs down on singlehood.  And off the record too that even the government has scratched its pre-millennium 'gene pool' ideology to merge the national matchmaking agencies where graduates and non-graduates were once inconspicuously segregated in the dating scene.

Fortunately, we have yet to arrive at the point where singlehood is frowned upon because it contributes to climate change (Hmmm...I wonder when).  For instance, more apartments had to be built to house the singles and had they marry, the need to provide quality accommodation would not be so taxing on the government and this in turn increases the demand for space in land-scarce Singapore and possibly driving the cost of apartments as well as the cost of energy since more energy per unit is used in the single's household compared to the nuclear family.

But at the end of the day, I'm glad my favourite journalist has found someone whom she reckoned is worth a shot, even at 46 years old.  After all, we only live once.