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GOOD-looking, fun to be around and a self-made millionaire to boot. She’s real estate queen Ivy Lee, whom you would think would be many guys’ idea of a dream woman. Until, that is, you mention her age.
It’s 42 – and even if, like Lee, you’ve got everything else going for you, to most men, you are an Older Woman, and that makes you a no-go zone.
Over the hill, on the shelf, desperate and dateless – those are just some of the labels slapped on women 35 and over who are unattached, whether because of divorce or never finding The One.
And while most men have little trouble finding a mate at any age – think old guy, hot babe – it seems that if you are a female midlifer, no matter how well-groomed and financially stable you are, you are doomed to be alone.
Even vivacious Lee – boss of Ivy Lee Realty in Singapore – found that although she has the Midas touch when it comes to making property sales, she couldn’t even get to the “offer” stage when she tried her luck with a dating agency.
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Good-looking, fun to be around, a selfmade millionaire and real estate queen Ivy Lee is still single. | Lee, who divorced her surgeon husband in 2003 and has two teenage sons, wasn’t after a young guy, or even someone her own age.
A year ago, she approached trendy dating agency Lunch Actually hoping to find a date. She told the consultant who interviewed her that she would like to meet men who are at least 10 years older. But the agency couldn’t sign her up as it simply didn’t have any male clients in that category who would want to date a woman her age.
The consultant took down her particulars and promised to call her should a suitable date appear. There has been no news yet.
“I was very disappointed,” says Lee. ‘I’ve been out of the dating scene for so long, it was quite a shock to come back in and realise your choices have practically dried up now.’
What drove the successful businesswoman to undertake what proved to be the demeaning experience of approaching a dating service?
It’s simple. As most people would agree, there’s nothing like having a soulmate to share your life with.
It’s hard to believe of the outgoing Lee, but she reveals that she was once so lonely about a year after she divorced her husband of 13 years, that she text messaged him asking if he would like them to get back together.
His reply was honest, if blunt. “Get a life. Move on,” the SMS message read.
She kept going, burying herself in work. But the Lonely Bug bit again.
Last year, she found herself missing company so much that she SMSed him again. She asked him if he would like to catch a movie, and again he said no.
“I hated myself for that. I was so pathetic, calling him up for a date,” she says. And so began her short-lived search for someone new to share her life with.
It required much plucking up of courage to finally approach a dating agency. There’s that whiff of desperation about the process, even in these modern times.
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Older women are said to be more mature and know how to take care of men. | So it’s all the more awful to think of Lee going through all that, and finding that, to use property parlance, her lease has already run out.
For Lee and women like her, they are too old for the pool of men hunting for Miss Right (or even, Miss Wrong).
At Lunch Actually, for example, the males who join its services are in their late 20s to late 40s. The women who sign up are in their mid-20s to mid-30s. In other words, the men are considered to have at least a whole decade more up their sleeves than women in which to enjoy the dating scene.
Another single woman in her prime is Wendy (not her real name), a 39-year-old human resource manager.
Like Lee, she too, was discouraged from signing up last year with Lunch Actually, although she was looking for men in a completely different age group from the property maven – she didn’t mind younger men. However, she was told that “most men prefer younger women”.
Undeterred, she signed up with another dating agency, It’s Just Lunch. For about S$1,000 (RM2,300), she would enjoy 12 dates. After the first date with a slightly older man, she didn’t hear from the agency for another three to four months. When she called to complain, she was told that they practised a “queue system”.
More than a year has passed and she has gone on only four dates, none of which worked out.
The managing director of It’s Just Lunch, Anisa Hassan, 34, maintains that her agency does not accept clients based on age alone as this is not a good reflection of who the person is and what his or her aspirations are.
Her women clients range from their early 20s to mid-40s, she went on to say.
Men, though range from the mid-20s right up to their 60s.
Anisa does add an interesting side-note: The agency has had a fair share of female clients who are in their late 30s and early 40s who have renewed their membership, as they are just happy meeting quality, single men.
“They are not necessarily looking for marriage, as most of them have comfortably embraced their singlehood,” she notes.
Researcher Rebecca Low, 41, who is single, sums up the sentiments of many single women when she says: “Single women are called spinsters and old maids while single men are celebrated in Most Eligible Bachelor lists. How fair is that?”
Ben Han, 39, who runs Blissful Marriage Consultants, says: “The usual reason given by men who go for younger women is that the chances of their bearing a child is higher compared to older women.”
Biologically, time is not on a woman’s side.
Dr Christopher Chen, head of Gleneagles Hospital’s IVF Centre in Singapore, says a woman is at her most fertile when she is 25. Her fertility declines progressively as she gets older, but it gets much steeper when she hits 35.
“When a woman is 45, her prospects of conceiving are quite poor,” says Dr Chen.
In contrast, a man’s sperm becomes less robust only at the age of 60, and men have been known to father children up to their 80s.
One man who has seen the plight of the single Older Singaporean Woman at first hand is Martin Wong, 38, who runs a marriage agency.
No, his agency is not for baby-boomers, or even certain-age singletons who are okay-looking. His Mr Cupid International Matchmakers specialises in Vietnamese brides.
But even so, he says that about 40 Singapore women have approached him for help during the five years he has been in the business.
All of them are above 30, and 75% of them are over 35. Most of them hold administrative jobs.
“Most of them are plain-looking, ordinary Singapore women who just want a chance at destiny,” he says. “They don’t have very high expectations. All they are looking for is a man with higher earning power than them.”
But none has been successfully matched so far. “Frankly, men who have made up their minds to go for a young foreign bride will not be interested in older Singapore women,” he says.
One woman who bucked the age-old, old-age trend is insurance agent Jenny Goh, 36, who met her husband, Steven Peh, two years ago.
He is a year younger than she is and helps to run his family’s jewellery business. They married last year.
“He was actually more interested in the younger women but I outshone them as I showered him with lots of care and concern,” she says.
“Older women are more mature and they know how to take care of men.”
Goh’s experience is bound to provide some cheer to the likes of realty top-seller Lee, who says she has gone out on four dates with men introduced by friends, as well as acquaintances at work, in the past year.
After all, clients have praised Lee publicly for her dedication and high level of customer service – qualities not unlike those which worked for Goh, and which may make her hot property for that special someone, some day.
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