Evergreen single Singaporeans in your late 20s or early 30s, what are you currently struggling with?

Friends getting BTOs and married left right centre but here I am, 29F, been single my entire life. Have used dating apps but just couldn’t get past the talking/situationship phase.

As I get older I do struggle with more self-doubts about myself bcos I’ve been single my whole life and afraid that I’ll be left on the dusty bookshelf.

Dates usually give me a rude “what???!” look whenever I tell them I’ve never been in a r/s before, and seemed like they take that as a red flag.

I do yearn to be in a r/s, but at the same time very comfortable with my freedom of being single.

It’s not like I am lonely or anything – I have a healthy r/s with my family, amazing friends, am also financially independent.

But then again, I do yearn to experience that intimacy you get with another person when in a r/s.

Netizen’s comments

I like to joke that I’m single by choice, just not my choice; but what I’ve come to realize is that a lot of the decisions I make (or don’t make) are either consciously or subconsciously motivated by my own desire to remain single. Because while being single can sometimes be lonely, it’s also a very very easy state to be in. To become attached means to make active choices to push yourself into that direction, it means being able to say that you’re willing to commit time and energy into building up that relationship, and it also means opening yourself up to the almost inevitable possibility of rejection and heartbreak.

All of that just builds up this tremendous amount of inertia that is very difficult to break if you’ve not been attached before. And I think after a while, you just start to rationalize a lot of it: ‘I want to focus on my studies first, ‘I want to focus on my career first, ‘I think I’ll hold out for the right one, ‘maybe I’m just not the dating type, ‘they probably wouldn’t like me anyway’. The last example is particularly scary to fall into. Because once you do, you might start to build up the belief that you’re fundamentally unlovable, not just in a romantic context one but in platonic ones as well. It makes you skeptical about the intentions of people trying to get close to you, and you might just end up turning down social opportunities and occasions where you could have found somebody to build a relationship with.

There’s a quote from the book Perks of Being A Wallflower that I like a lot (though I didn’t particularly enjoy the rest of the book): We accept the love we think we deserve. Unfortunately, after a while of being single, I think a lot of us become increasingly convinced that we are less and less deserving of that love. And the tragic thing is that we act accordingly.

My(22F) boyfriend(24M) proposed to me in the worst way possible.

My boyfriend of 2 years really, really wants to marry me. He has told me many times I am the love of his life and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. He wants to marry me as soon as possible. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. But I’m too young to be married right now. I’ve told him this many, many, many times. We agreed to get married in 2025 because of it. But boyfriend still wants to propose to right away.

I’ve known he was gonna propose. We have already picked out an engagement ring together. He’s asked me how I wanted to be proposed to, and I told him in a romantic way, with just the two of us. I don’t want to be proposed to in public, or just out of the blue at home while I’m studying or something. I know it’s selfish to say but I want my heart to pound with love during the moment.

Well. Since then it seems like boyfriend has ignored everything I said I wanted. He’s asked me to marry him 5 times out of the blue at home while I’m doing chores or something. He doesn’t go down on one knee or give me the ring just “Hey wanna get married”. I’ve always said “I’m too young to be married right now, but an engagement is good if you ask me in a romantic way”.

This is where the title comes in, yesterday me and boyfriend went to ren Faire with our close friends. And earlier that week I had a gut feeling he was gonna propose. So earlier that week I specifically told him over the phone “I don’t want you to propose at ren faire, please don’t, that isn’t how I want it to go, I hate being the center of attention”.

Well as we were regrouping and getting ready to leave. Boyfriend (very tipsy) comes up to me and pulls out the ring and gets down on 1 knee. And he asks me in public surrounded by people. I freak out and say “I’m too young” and try to walk away. But boyfriend insists like “we can still be engaged”. So I said fine and he put the ring on. Then people started clapping and I wanted to die. I still want to die thinking about it.

Right away I told him, this isn’t how I wanted it to go, and I told him to please try again. Because I hate public proposals. Well he took the ring back and he’s been spiraling down and emotional rabbit hole. He devastated and mad that I rejected him.

And I need reddits help for what to do next. He hasn’t talked to me since ren Faire. I try and talk to him about it, saying I still love him, and he’s not the problem. But I’m just ignored. What do I do next? I don’t know how I can bring him out of this funk. Are my requests too much? I just really need some advice.

I am stuck and I just need help in dating.

Things like height, looks, race, physique due to medical condition, balding, skin conditions (incurable), etc. make it difficult to date. A lot of times these things are beyond a person’s control. Sometimes, they may not even be bad things but the main populace has a lower perception because of them. I am gonna call these things “downers” for simplicity sake.

You may say whatever you want but I have seen (from my own experience as well as peers) how much difference these downers make.

I have more than one of these downers which makes it even worse. I strongly believed that I would not let these downers dictate my life.

I tried my best to make the best out of what I could do. I improved myself in areas that I was weak and tried to present my strengths in a better manner. Some examples would be conversational skills, having more empathy to others, exercising (within my abilities) and controlling my emotions a lot better.

To be honest, it kind of worked but not the way that I expected it to. I started to make more friends and more people also trusted me. People actually come to me to have random or fun chats (things like these never happened before).

So what went wrong?

All of these friends are either male or married/attached females. It took quite some time for them to see my true self so yes, it takes some time for people to see my “better” side.

Dating apps don’t do these as most of them are based off pics or short desc. (I really tried my best to put a good profile but it is just hard). I get very little matches, mostly no matches.

I tried joining activities (sports, dating, social, etc.) to meet new people but most of the time, it is either the time spent is too short for them to see me, people are already taken or they are more interested in people without downers.

After all the effort, no progress at all……

Why do I feel so sad today?

Because something happened and it hit me really hard, like super hard……

One of my female friends saw potential in me and tried to recommend me to her friend. It was suppose to like a blind date thing (no photos). I was very hopeful because my friend said that she would highlight my strengths while describing me to her. Now that I think back, she didn’t really describe much about her friend but I was open to meet anyone at this point. She said that I had a very good chance with her.

However, she told me that her friend was not interested. She said that she heard about my downer and immediately rejected me. She did not give her a chance to describe about my personality or strengths. She was not even willing to meet me.

I don’t know why but this incident kind of crushed my confidence….

I don’t know why I am being equated to something that is beyond my control and not being evaluated for my personality.

I have no idea how to proceed anymore.

I feel lost.

Please help me…..

How do I (23F) tell my boyfriend (30M) that his comedy is bad
My boyfriend has recently gotten into stand up comedy, and he loves it which is great! He has met a lot of cool people and has been doing open mics for a couple months now. The only thing is, he isn’t very good.

Now I know people need practice before they’re good at anything and comedy is one of them, but I get second hand embarrassment really bad and I can barely stand going to these open mics anymore just to watch him bomb every time.

He got a couple laughs the other night and it has sent him into this idea that he’s really good, and has been asking places to give him a full hour set. I cannot watch him do comedy for an hour. He posted one of his sets online and people were commenting either things along the lines of “oof” “yikes” or “good try” and he still can’t grasp that maybe he isn’t as good as he thinks and needs to work on material.

What drives me the most crazy is he doesn’t change his material, he has been reusing the same jokes that historically haven’t gotten laughs over and over again expecting them to finally get a one.

I know I’m probably being a bad girlfriend but if I have to sit though his comedy one more time I’m going to have a brain aneurysm.

Local employer being childish and judgmental

So I was previously employed in a company. During the interview, everything was painted so beautifully, and the interviewer did whatever they can to make you go onboard.

They claims that everybody is nice and friendly, no politics and it’s a nice environment.

So being a fresh graduate, thought everything was genuine and just joined the company, and even had to pay for joining the company.

But as soon as I joined, it was the start of my nightmare. The staffs were all in their own groups, messing around during work, and nobody was doing work seriously.

They hired interns to do cold calling for them so that their existing staff don’t have to. The interns did cold calling for the whole period, and didn’t learn anything else.

Apparently their logbook to submit back to their schools was just, cold calling everyday. I really pity them for doing work for other people.

Anyway, the boss is very fake. He would pretend to ask about your progress, and if he knows that you’re near to closing a sale, he would take the lead from you and end up closing himself.

So after a few months, one if my colleague didn’t managed to close any sales. And this became the reason that she was terminated on the spot.

However, the next day, one of the colleagues messaged her and said the real reason why she was terminated.

There was a negative review posted online about the company. The boss assumed and insisted she was the one that posted it, without any clarifications.

So now everything became clear to her. An employer that doesn’t seek any clarification from the staff and pointed finger at that person and fired her on the spot.

Where’s the logic to this. And some time after she left, this company still calls and disturbs her family and talked bad about her! Is this company sick?

After hearing this from a female colleague JC, I immediately tendered my resignation and left shortly after. How can such people run a company. I really hope they get their retribution soon. Poor girl.