SINGAPORE: In the early days of the Internet, web anonymity and the sketchy nature of chatrooms gave rise to the conventional wisdom that you shouldn’t meet in person anyone you’ve met only online.

Not only should you be wary about meeting someone you barely know, but chances are, the person isn’t the handsome, brooding 20-year-old in university with nice abs but a single, male predator in his 40s or 50s, and that will be the last anyone will ever see of you.

Times have changed. The opposite is now not only true but pervasive.

In the US, online dating has increased massively over the last five years, tripling among millennials aged 18 to 25 since 2013, while approval of online dating increased by 15 percentage points in that same time frame, according to a Pew Research Centre survey.

Where online dating in Asia have lagged by a year or two, and wariness of starting a relationship through a dating app is on the wane, we expect these attitudes to shift in tandem.

WIDENING YOUR CIRCLE

That is not to say that a dating app will find you your one true love on the first swipe. 

The native population on such platforms can admittedly be diverse, and the swipe-left-swipe-right feature may seem to encourage matching based on physical attractiveness.

But for those seeking a long-term relationship, I hope you take heart in the feedback I’ve received that the casual nature of these apps sometimes provide safe cover for those who seek out something more serious but are too afraid to say so.

If anything else, consider such apps a larger net you can cast on a wider ocean of fish – for your options are no longer limited to whoever your bestie thinks is another hot single or that nice young man at the factory that your mother works at.

Chatting with someone new who you find vaguely attractive can be exhilarating but also a useful opportunity to gather information about the other person and assess compatibility.

For those who want to connect with another, it’s easier to sound witty and humourous if you’re behind a screen. For the shy and less wordy, gifs and emoticons can be helpful.

But if you find yourself chatting over a long period without any plans to meet materialising, won’t this lead to frustration, especially if you’re looking for something more?

TAKING THE NEXT STEP

Most people on our dating app do exchange numbers and eventually meet up, some 90 per cent do so within seven days, though there is some small variance across countries.

A small number are interested in only chatting to pass the time and there may be those who strike up a conversation only to find that common interests or chemistry are lacking.

Many users I’ve met say it can be nerve-racking to ask someone out on a date.

Will I look as good as my photoshopped profile picture, when I’m not emerging from the ocean in a tightly fitted diving suit? Will I chew my food awkwardly that make my well-postured selfies, which required five or six shots, seem like a fraud?

Or worse, will the conversation go quiet? What if I don’t meet the items on their checklist?

Meeting up in person after you meet through a dating app is not for everyone but it is for most.

It is a much less awkward way of meeting someone, at least because most of us will have the right amount of information – not quite the blind date you’ve been set up on where you get the entire lowdown of the other person’s life, work and dating history, or the head rushing but admittedly shallow feels from meeting someone in the thralls of a club blaring the latest Chainsmokers’ hit at 2am.

But the struggle is real; and the conversion from online to meeting someone does indeed require putting yourself out there. 

Many of us put our best foot forward and paint the best versions of ourselves online with highly curated profiles, to the point where we might get a little worried that we will never live up to our online personas in real life.

This happens to everyone at some point.

The reverse is also true. If you’ve been spending a lot of time texting, chatting and building up this perfect image of the other person, you may feel very invested and have extremely high hopes for your date. Why put that kind of pressure on yourself and him or her?

Deeply ironic is that while traditional advice on online dating is not to give too much information about yourself away to maintain some degree of mystique, you probably stalk the online profiles of the person you’re chatting with to get as much information as you possibly can.

MEET BUT PLAN FIRST

The best advice is to just take the plunge and arrange to meet, but the more useful tip is to plan your meeting. Be safe and choose well-lit, public places. Plan options that you’re comfortable with.

People also sometimes tell me that they factor in an exit strategy – whether arranging a weekday lunch where there is a natural end, or coffee before your other dinner plans. These, coupled with a phone call before to get to know the other person, can take the edge off the date.

It’s okay if it didn’t work out as you’ve planned in your head. The key is in parting amicably, knowing that you and this person once had a mutual interest in each other.

Even if there isn’t that romantic spark or deep chemistry, you no doubt will meet with interesting people you’d otherwise never meet – that globe-trotting steward or that well-connected venture capitalist or even that guy from school who you always thought was cute.

Tons of people keep in touch and become good friends.

Some say what remains the most challenging part of modern dating isn’t the meeting up but what happens after the first date. It’s still up to you to put in effort to get to know someone, see if there’s compatibility and work on building a strong relationship if you’re lucky enough to meet someone special.

Compromise, negotiation and conflict resolution in relationships are things all of us are still grappling with to some extent, even for those in long marriages so don’t expect it to be easy.

For those who didn’t find that connection, being able to plunge back into the swiping may offer some relief. But hopefully the ease of doing so doesn’t discourage you to work on a relationship when you do find someone.

Notorious serial dater and womaniser Barney Stinson was hitting on a woman in this one episode of How I Met Your Mother after he got into a fight with his girlfriend and broke up with her.

In a turning point in the series that changed Barney’s life, the woman turned around and asked: “Do you want to keep playing, or do you want to win?”

Maybe this will serve a bout of inspiration for those afraid to ask that someone you’ve been chatting on a dating app out.

Ng Jing Shen is founder and CEO of Paktor. 

PHOENIX: Captain (CPT) Kwan Siew Ling, 30, used to be set on living a civilian life.

She had just graduated from the University of New South Wales with a degree in pharmacology, so she became a pharmacy technician, a job that involved checking prescriptions and dispensing medicine.

Fast forward almost a decade and it is hard to imagine that the diminutive, soft-spoken woman now works as a battery commander for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).

There are six HIMARS – making up one battery – participating in Exercise Forging Sabre, which the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is conducting this week.

In the sprawling Arizona desert, against the dull, sporadic thud of ongoing live firing, CPT Kwan recalled how she languished in her previous job.

“I joined because I had an interest in medicine and science,” she said. “I enjoyed the job, but the job scope stagnated. Every day, I was doing the same thing.” So, she decided to venture into other jobs that gave her “more opportunities to learn”.

But why the military? CPT Kwan said it was partly due to her father, a retired  Guardsman and warrant officer of 25 years.

He had tried persuading CPT Kwan to join the military fresh out of university, but she rejected it because she wanted to pursue her main interest. But when he learnt about how she was looking for a career change, he tried again.

CPT Kwan said her dad’s passion for the military turned her head. “It’s through how he serious he is when it comes to his attire and work,” she said. “The way he talks to his colleagues too.” 

Still, she saw how her dad went on many overseas exercises and regularly came home late from work, meaning he spent limited time at home. But that did not deter her from signing on the dotted line, as she left her pharmaceutical job after three years.

Now, she has been in the artillery for six years, where she was recently a fire direction trainer at the artillery institute before being posted as HIMARS battery commander.

In her new role, CPT Kwan has taken after her dad’s willingness to sacrifice a lot for military. 

She has skipped multiple social events because of work, especially because she used to travel on four two-week work trips a year in her previous role as a trainer. She has been on more than 10 overseas exercises so far, to countries like New Zealand and India.

But because her dad was in the same boat, her family has gotten used to it.

“If I am not committed, I would not be able to convince the full-time national servicemen to be committed to defence if I were not a good role model myself,” she said.

One of her biggest tests came in August this year. CPT Kwan’s grandfather had passed away, and his funeral was to be held on National Day. But because of HIMARS’ involvement in the parade, CPT Kwan absolutely had to be there. So, she gave the funeral a miss.

It was no doubt a tough decision, she said, stuttering and unable to finish her next sentence. After a brief pause, she explained that she attended the parade because that was what her grandfather would have wanted.

She did not think of him during the parade either, as she knew he would have wanted her to prioritise her job. “He definitely wanted me to complete it,” she said

ROCKETS GET IMPROVEMENTS

Back in the Arizona desert, CPT Kwan got on with her job. Up next was a media demonstration where HIMARS launchers would fire three dummy rockets at the same time. She had to leave the interview for a while because she needed to brief her crew.

As battery commander, CPT Kwan does not travel with the HIMARS vehicles. Instead, she sits in a jeep that stays close by. She also has the final say on all major decisions, including overriding a command to strike by the fire decision officer.

“He makes the final call unless things will affect operations in the bigger picture,” she explained. “If not, I will be at the back end monitoring the fire mission.”

The bigger picture includes mission plans, command post instructions and safety. For example, she can call off a strike if a friendly force is inside the HIMARS’ danger zone.

So does CPT Kwan face challenges as a woman issuing orders in a male-dominated environment? None at all, she affirmed. “I don’t feel any difference at all,” she said. “It’s unlike previously whereby there’s probably no female inside the organisation.”

She encouraged women who aspire to hold important positions like hers to “believe they can do it”. “If they have the passion and interest, nothing should deter them from joining this organisation,” she added.

While CPT Kwan acknowledged that she has an important role in the battery, she is far from being overawed. “As long as you know your stuff and you have ground situational awareness, that shouldn’t be an issue,” she said.

Her role has grown even more crucial with recent upgrades to the HIMARS. It now can make firing decisions on the go, allowing a quicker response on the battlefield. New software also allows it to fire at multiple targets.

“Operational-wise, it’s all digitalised, so it’ll be way faster and more efficient as compared to the old one,” CPT Kwan said.

The HIMARS’ battery command post has received a facelift too. Because it has in-built generators, it can deploy faster in four minutes, down from the seven minutes previously. It is also more spacious and conducive for conducting missions.

“I would say this exercise really helps us visualise a bigger picture,” CPT Kwan added. “Locally, we only train purely as a HIMARS battery, but here, there’s integration with the air force and our higher headquarters, so we really understand what all these sense and strike missions are about.”

The HIMARS personnel counted down from ten. On zero, rockets lit up the gloomy sky, screeching towards targets up to 70km away.

For CPT Kwan, her current job has brought her a lot of happiness. 

“The organisation emphasises on training and development. I am constantly learning and being exposed to new things whenever there are opportunities,” she said.

“I’m proud – the last time I was a pharmacy technician, now I’m a battery commander.”

SINGAPORE: A 41-year-old man has been arrested for suspected drink driving after a multi-vehicle accident along Tanjong Pagar Road on Thursday evening (Dec 7). 

Four people were taken to Singapore General Hospital.

The police said they were alerted to the accident at about 6.30pm, and it involved a car, taxi and a lorry.

Four ambulances were dispatched to the scene, said the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).

Eyewitness Brenda Har said she was on her way to the supermarket when she heard a “loud bang and many people screaming”.

SCDF and the police arrived soon after, she said.

Ms Har added that the four pedestrians, including a man aged around 60 to 70, all appeared to be “quite badly injured”.

Police investigations are ongoing.

SINGAPORE: Evening rush-hour commuters at Jurong East MRT station faced large crowds and delays after platforms at the station were closed unexpectedly on Thursday (Dec 7).

Several commuters told Channel NewsAsia that platforms D and E were closed, and that they were being redirected to other platforms.

Channel NewsAsia reader Zarina Zainol, who was travelling to Choa Chu Kang on the North-South Line, said the platform was cordoned off and commuters were directed to Platform A instead.

Ms Zarina, 28, added that all the escalators were moving in a single direction.

“All the escalators were going downwards,” she said, adding that she was pregnant and had to climb the stairs as other commuters were “pushing (her) off the lift”.

A video posted on Twitter showed commuters taking the stairs to platforms A and B. 

Ms Zarina told Channel NewsAsia that no announcements were made, but there were a few staff members directing the crowd.

She added that the huge crowd made it difficult for commuters to see staff members.

Other commuters commented that they had not received any information about the platform closure and appealed to train operator SMRT for information.

Another social media user Alison Loh commented that delays had reportedly reached other parts of the North-South line.

“I’m on a train now towards Orchard, there’s a bottleneck here as well and its moving really slowly, making stops at every stop so far. Apparently this train terminates at AMK, and no info given on this delay either,” she wrote.

Channel NewsAsia contacted SMRT for comment.

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Police Force (SPF) responded to a simulated terrorist attack inside the State Courts in the first counter-terrorism exercise there on Thursday (Dec 7).

SPF said in a news release that the exercise, which took place at about noon, started with the scenario of two gunmen walking into the State Courts entrance and opening fire at the crowd.

Auxiliary Police Officers (APOs) and State Courts staff contained the situation first, the police said.

Officers from the Emergency Response Team and Bukit Merah East Neighbourhood Police Centre responded within minutes and coordinated their response with the APOs and State Courts staff to locate and take down the “gunmen”, they added.

“The Singapore Police Force urges all premise owners to review their response plan and exercise their staff to enhance their readiness to deal with an attack,” it added in the news release.

A spokesperson from the State Courts said that it believes it is “important to prepare our people for such possible attacks”.

Its partnership with SPF on the exercise is to help raise the level of awareness and vigilance of staff and coordinate the response plans of court security, police and other stakeholders, the spokesperson added.

PHOENIX: For the first time in an exercise, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) has dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on “enemy” targets, destroying them with precision accuracy.

Two F-15SG fighter jets, each carrying two GBU-31 high explosive bombs, flew the first sortie on Dec 1. A similar mission took place the next day.

The GBU-31 bomb is a Global Positioning System-guided precision munition that can accurately target and destroy large or heavily fortified structures.

Ten F-15SGs participated in the 16-day live firing exercise held in Arizona, which will end on Dec 13. About 150 precise munitions were fired, eight of which were GBU-31s.

The RSAF can use the GBU-31 bombs to destroy larger targets more quickly, as compared to using multiple 500-pound bombs. The 2,000-pounders have the potential to disable enemy surveillance systems, ground based air defence systems and command posts in a single strike.

To make one of the missions as realistic as possible, the two F-15SGs took off at night with an initial set of targets.

However, a Heron-1 unmanned aerial vehicle found a more critical set of targets and so  relayed it to the command post, which evaluated the situation and ordered the fighters to take out the new targets instead.

To complicate matters, these four new targets were actually in a cluster of 12 similar looking targets. But the Heron-1 still managed to accurately identify and locate them for the fighter pilots.

The pilots then programmed the target coordinates into the GBU-31 bombs and dropped them precisely on the targets, which could represent crucial enemy buildings and systems in an airbase.

The teamwork between the F-15s, Heron-1 and command post is just one example of the integration that must be replicated across services, said exercise air director Colonel (COL) Liew Boon Ping.

“In an area where I already have a certain number of air assets that have committed in coordinated strikes, I may not have sufficient bombs to destroy everything on the ground,” he noted.

“At our level of integration, all I need to ask is are the HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) ready, and my command.”

Exercise land director COL Michael Ma said the live firing exercises give troops confidence.

“You can talk about it and train for it back home, but nothing beats seeing the actual live munition destroy the target, or for the soldiers out there in the field to experience it for themselves and smell the explosives,” he said.

SINGAPORE: The people who knew Gaye Alassane describe him as a “nice guy” who was well-liked.

Born in Mali, he has called Singapore home for more than 20 years and received his Singapore citizenship in 2003. 

During his time here, the former Gombak United player carved out a career in football, but his involvement in a global match-fixing syndicate proved to be his downfall.

On Thursday (Dec 7), the Ministry of Home Affairs announced that a naturalised citizen, believed to be Alassane, will be stripped of his Singapore citizenship due to his involvement in match-fixing.

He had been detained without trial in 2013, for a period of about two years, and has since been under Police Supervision Order.

One of his best friends in Singapore, former Warriors FC defender Bah Mamadou, said that the 43-year-old has been stressed out after finding himself in the news earlier today.

“I know him very well – and for a long time now – as we were born in the same country. He’s like a brother to me,” said Mamadou, who is now a youth coach at a private footballing academy. “Alassane is a nice guy, and everyone who knows him, knows that.”

“Everybody makes mistakes in life. After (Alassane) was released, he regretted his mistakes and has since become a changed person,” he added. “The man got punished … came out from detention, was living his life and then this news happened today.”

Speaking to Channel NewsAsia, Mamadou said that the latest development has been bothering his friend. “He’s feeling stressed out, and that was when he tried to call me today while I was doing coaching,” he said.

“After work today, I read the news and then I called him back. I told him to just go home and relax.”

A JOURNEYMAN PLAYING CAREER

Alassane’s career here pre-dates the start of the S-League, having played with local Premier League club Tiong Bahru CSC in 1994 when he was 19 years old. Among the journeyman’s other clubs in subsequent years are Wellington FC and Tampines, before he joined Gombak United in 2000 where he was mainly a reserve player.

After his S-League career, Alassane turned out for National Football League side Tampines 1951 and also played amateur football with Oxley City in the ESPZEN league.

He also ran the A-Stars Soccer Academy in Singapore before his arrest.

FINDING EMPLOYMENT

Upon his release from detention, Alassane is understood to have taken up coaching and had even found work at TWG Tea earlier this year.

“When he got a job at TWG, everybody was talking about his detention stint for what he did, which then eventually led to his sacking. The management there didn’t like it, even though he was working there for about three or four months,” said Mamadou, who added that his friend was let go from the company less than a month ago.

However, in response to Channel NewsAsia’s queries, TWG said they had “no knowledge” of the ongoing case.

“Mr Alassane is no longer employed by TWG Tea since 9 Nov 2017. We have no knowledge of this case or his situation,” said Maranda Barnes, co-founder of TWG.

Alassane had obtained his citizenship under the Family Ties Scheme in 2003 through his marriage to Singaporean Norie Abdul, a former Football Association of Singapore employee.

Channel NewsAsia understands that they have since divorced and the footballer has custody of their two children.

“(Alassane) has been in Singapore for more than 20 years, has got family to feed but he is now unemployed … and he has been faced with the same jobless situation, ever since,” said Mamadou.

“With the news coming out now, how is he going to feed his family like this?” he added.

A CHANGED MAN?

Alassane has found solace in religion and Mamadou believes his friend will someday find his feet in life once more. “After his police detention, Alassane has since repented and visits the mosque almost every day,” he said.

“He frequents Al-Falah mosque, especially during the fasting month, and has since became more pious.

“I think everyone deserves a second chance in life.”