Hi again.
Was directed to this article by the same friend; written by the same guy who wrote "No man is right for picky women".
Your views again?
November 19, 2004
Why Singapore women go for ang moh men
By Philip Lee
JUST after I had finished writing my commentary last Thursday on Singaporean women being too picky in choosing mates, my colleague Godfrey Robert, who had read it, told me: When you return to work on Monday, be prepared for angry mail from women.
I said: Great. I hope there will be a healthy debate on the subject.
The subject, is, of course, old hat. But it never fails to excite robust comments from both sides.
We received quite a few responses and I am highlighting two letters, one from a Singaporean man disillusioned with local women, especially those educated overseas, and a woman who explains why she married an ang moh.
The male reader e-mailed a trenchant letter. He said: Singapore women have become too superficially Westernised or Americanised (without really grasping the finer features of Western culture).
They are too materialistic, self-centred and self-righteous to be worth the effort for men to woo them.
My single men friends would far prefer Malaysian women (those who have not lived here long enough to catch the dreaded disease) and, of course, Chinese ones.
In a nutshell, Singapore women, having watched too many Ally McBeal or Sex in the City episodes and other mindless stuff on TV and read too much of the drivel written by mostly women journalists, have forgotten that they are Asian.
Worse, they have forgotten how to be women.
Do Singapore women realise all this? They are probably too consumed with themselves to even notice.
And men who have despaired of and given up on Singapore women don't even want to bother telling them either, much less explain why.
So let these women continue to disparage Singapore men, sniff at men who don't make them laugh.
Goodness, when will they wake up to the fact that the silver-tongued 'ang mohs' who chat them up and sprout amusing crap want only, in the end, to bed them? And then say goodbye after it is all over?
A woman named Grace e-mailed to say: I started dating way back when I was 14 years old. I have dated Malays, Indians, and Chinese men all locals.
I have been happily married for more than five years to a strong, tall, handsome ang moh from Australia.
Am I a picky woman? Hell, yes!
I don't think anyone is looking for perfection. You can't be serious if you are. No one is perfect.
But everyone loves a confident person. Interviewers look for confidence in potential employees, mothers bring their kids to doctors they have confidence in, and people vote for a president who inspires confidence.
It's the same with looking for the other half in life. A sense of humour can be indicative of a person's confidence. This applies to both the man and the woman.
It says a lot about how you perceive the world. It tells the other person if you are the sort who can handle the situation when something goes wrong.
A positive outlook and a sense of humour definitely make a person very attractive.
Imagine, if you do not have confidence in the other person, would you want to spend the rest of your life with him or her?
So what is it, if anything, that separates local men from the 'ang moh'?
Is it this elusive C?
Looking back at all the men I have gone out with, my theory seems frighteningly true, or maybe, it's just my bad karma.
Many, not all, of my ex-boyfriends were not the confident sort.
Not too long after I graduated from university, I was engaged to a very intelligent man. But he was also a cynical person, perhaps because of his broken family background.
Although I could talk about everything under the sun with him, he would clam up at parties and wouldn't even try to make conversation. This embarrassed me.
After a while, we broke up.
Another example was a colleague who was a highly educated bachelor in his early 30s, good-looking and well-paid. He was an excellent conversationalist.
But he was poor in social skills. He had no confidence in himself and relied a lot on me for a second opinion about even the simplest things. Then I met my husband. He is comfortable with being himself. He doesn't care if his polka dot tie doesn't go exactly with the purple pinstripe shirt; he just laughs at himself when people tell him how silly he looks.
The big difference is that he moved out of his home when he was in his late teens, and went to university in another state. He had to work throughout his undergraduate years to upkeep himself.
He paid his rent, bought a car, cooked his own meals, did the dishes, cleaned the house, washed and ironed his clothes, and studied at the same time.
That's what made him different and so full of confidence. He had to fend for himself early in life.
Our local man may have the confidence to rattle the square root of 13 to the 15th decimal place, but what's the use of that?
Being picky is not such a bad thing if one does not do this in the extreme weigh everything, warts and all, and then decide.
Another male reader said: Many Singaporean or Asian women date or marry white men because they want to obtain PR status to live in the West.
A Streats reader who signed off as Roziah wrote: Sure a woman wants a man who makes her laugh. That is before she marries him. But after that, she wants him to be responsible, help do chores, help with the groceries and so on.
I have never found a need to find a man who makes me laugh, though that would be nice. I was looking for someone who would make me feel comfortable, that I can be myself when I am with him, who would make me feel important in his life.
If I need a laugh, I will probably go watch a comedy.
Was directed to this article by the same friend; written by the same guy who wrote "No man is right for picky women".
Your views again?
November 19, 2004
Why Singapore women go for ang moh men
By Philip Lee
JUST after I had finished writing my commentary last Thursday on Singaporean women being too picky in choosing mates, my colleague Godfrey Robert, who had read it, told me: When you return to work on Monday, be prepared for angry mail from women.
I said: Great. I hope there will be a healthy debate on the subject.
The subject, is, of course, old hat. But it never fails to excite robust comments from both sides.
We received quite a few responses and I am highlighting two letters, one from a Singaporean man disillusioned with local women, especially those educated overseas, and a woman who explains why she married an ang moh.
The male reader e-mailed a trenchant letter. He said: Singapore women have become too superficially Westernised or Americanised (without really grasping the finer features of Western culture).
They are too materialistic, self-centred and self-righteous to be worth the effort for men to woo them.
My single men friends would far prefer Malaysian women (those who have not lived here long enough to catch the dreaded disease) and, of course, Chinese ones.
In a nutshell, Singapore women, having watched too many Ally McBeal or Sex in the City episodes and other mindless stuff on TV and read too much of the drivel written by mostly women journalists, have forgotten that they are Asian.
Worse, they have forgotten how to be women.
Do Singapore women realise all this? They are probably too consumed with themselves to even notice.
And men who have despaired of and given up on Singapore women don't even want to bother telling them either, much less explain why.
So let these women continue to disparage Singapore men, sniff at men who don't make them laugh.
Goodness, when will they wake up to the fact that the silver-tongued 'ang mohs' who chat them up and sprout amusing crap want only, in the end, to bed them? And then say goodbye after it is all over?
A woman named Grace e-mailed to say: I started dating way back when I was 14 years old. I have dated Malays, Indians, and Chinese men all locals.
I have been happily married for more than five years to a strong, tall, handsome ang moh from Australia.
Am I a picky woman? Hell, yes!
I don't think anyone is looking for perfection. You can't be serious if you are. No one is perfect.
But everyone loves a confident person. Interviewers look for confidence in potential employees, mothers bring their kids to doctors they have confidence in, and people vote for a president who inspires confidence.
It's the same with looking for the other half in life. A sense of humour can be indicative of a person's confidence. This applies to both the man and the woman.
It says a lot about how you perceive the world. It tells the other person if you are the sort who can handle the situation when something goes wrong.
A positive outlook and a sense of humour definitely make a person very attractive.
Imagine, if you do not have confidence in the other person, would you want to spend the rest of your life with him or her?
So what is it, if anything, that separates local men from the 'ang moh'?
Is it this elusive C?
Looking back at all the men I have gone out with, my theory seems frighteningly true, or maybe, it's just my bad karma.
Many, not all, of my ex-boyfriends were not the confident sort.
Not too long after I graduated from university, I was engaged to a very intelligent man. But he was also a cynical person, perhaps because of his broken family background.
Although I could talk about everything under the sun with him, he would clam up at parties and wouldn't even try to make conversation. This embarrassed me.
After a while, we broke up.
Another example was a colleague who was a highly educated bachelor in his early 30s, good-looking and well-paid. He was an excellent conversationalist.
But he was poor in social skills. He had no confidence in himself and relied a lot on me for a second opinion about even the simplest things. Then I met my husband. He is comfortable with being himself. He doesn't care if his polka dot tie doesn't go exactly with the purple pinstripe shirt; he just laughs at himself when people tell him how silly he looks.
The big difference is that he moved out of his home when he was in his late teens, and went to university in another state. He had to work throughout his undergraduate years to upkeep himself.
He paid his rent, bought a car, cooked his own meals, did the dishes, cleaned the house, washed and ironed his clothes, and studied at the same time.
That's what made him different and so full of confidence. He had to fend for himself early in life.
Our local man may have the confidence to rattle the square root of 13 to the 15th decimal place, but what's the use of that?
Being picky is not such a bad thing if one does not do this in the extreme weigh everything, warts and all, and then decide.
Another male reader said: Many Singaporean or Asian women date or marry white men because they want to obtain PR status to live in the West.
A Streats reader who signed off as Roziah wrote: Sure a woman wants a man who makes her laugh. That is before she marries him. But after that, she wants him to be responsible, help do chores, help with the groceries and so on.
I have never found a need to find a man who makes me laugh, though that would be nice. I was looking for someone who would make me feel comfortable, that I can be myself when I am with him, who would make me feel important in his life.
If I need a laugh, I will probably go watch a comedy.
