Matchmaker, Matchmaker... Find Me a Match!

Having deemed the swipe-right game a waste of time, Hoe I Yune gave three dating services a go.

- Hoe I Yune

In the 2016 rom-com How to Be Single, Alison Brie’s New Yorker character uses peanuts to illustrate the dismal dating prospects every bachelorette faces in the big city.

The Big Apple’s population may exceed eight million – think of that as a fistful of peanuts, she explains to a hapless bartender – but weed out the women and those who are out of your age range, married, gay and less educated, and you’re left with... one pathetic peanut. Make that one crushed peanut after factoring in kids and looks. “I’m on 10 different dating websites to increase my odds,” she concludes. But is dating just a numbers game?

It sure seems that way based on my experiences with Tinder, where you need to sift out creeps and scammers, and converse for a while to gauge compatibility before you finally meet up. Then there are the terrible pick-up lines and the questionable photos. It’s exhausting!

“So why not give traditional matchmaking a go?” I thought. Let someone else screen for quality. Unlike faceless algorithms, a matchmaker is like a friend... who, unlike an actual friend, doesn’t have to choose sides when a pairing goes sour.

So I put on my best dating game face and tried out three dating services. How would they fare in the swipe-right age?

IT’S JUST LUNCH (IJL)

Brought over 12 years ago from the US by Anisa Hassan, managing director at IJL Asia, IJL has 150 offices worldwide. Expats make up half its Singapore database – an indication of its membership mobility – and of its users, 3,000 are considered actively dating locally at any time.