The Girls' Club

In the spirit of the tradition of stepping into the new year with a clean slate and fresh objectives, and in an era where female voices carry more weight than before on a societal level, elle singapore asks three women: what prejudice do they face in their daily lives, and what is the change they want to see?

- Andrea Sim

CELINE TAN, 38 Chief Operating Officer On the perception of relationships

It is easy to judge my relationship. After all, I’m seven years older than my husband, we met on Tinder, and we are an interracial couple. You would think in this era, this would not be eyebrow-raising. The idea of a Caucasian man and an Asian woman still triggers misconceptions as she is traditionally seen as an “SPG” (Sarong Party Girl, a woman who dates only Caucasian men) trying to bag a rich white guy. This perception is an over-generalisation especially in Singapore, where women are ambitious and lead busy, active social lives.

Then there is the age difference between us. Thanks to Sex and the City, dating a younger man immediately pigeonholes me as Samantha Jones, the man-hungry cougar played by Kim Cattrall. The reality is, my husband has a stable professional career, doesn’t sit around waiting for me to come home, and we have worked out how we split our household responsibilities.

We work hard at attaining as much clarity as possible in our relationship, and I ultimately respect my husband’s decisions because I know that they have been thought through with our different perspectives in mind. Because I am a major decision-maker at work, I choose to let him take the lead where possible at home — and I love him for that.

People joke that it was love at first swipe for us. But honestly, I wasn’t looking for love. I simply wanted to meet someone who was not in my usual social circles and back then, Tinder had a “mutual friends on Facebook” feature. And I would only swipe right if that person had zero connections to me.

When we met, I didn’t even think of the age difference. I saw a confident, ambitious man. I found out that he had lived a hard life but still had the drive to want to achieve something great. I respect that.