Fast love

Forget slow and steady. It's fast and furious that wins the race of love in this high-octane, 0-to-100kmh- in-six-seconds society.

COURTSHIP, it is sometimes said, is a long and winding road. Do you go slow and steady or 2 Fast 2 Furious?

The topic on how long one should take to woo someone before you call it quits came up recently in a discussion with a female colleague.

Diminutive in size but big in the brains department, she says she will give the guy six months or maybe just a bit more to prove himself.

'The guy is always well-groomed and well-behaved on the first few dates. But once you peel off the initial layers, it comes down to whether you can really live with the person,' she notes.

'And a guy who takes it slow is good, because it shows he has a considered approach towards relationships and is going to stick around for the long haul,' she theorises.

Nice theory.

But, sadly, it only pays off in Taiwanese TV weepies, where the long-suffering sod stoically waits for his dream woman - usually a close friend - while she dates almost the entire male population of Taiwan before coming to her senses.

In our high-octane, 0-to-100kmh-in-six-seconds society, slow and steady doesn't always win the race. Instead, whoever steps on the gas is more likely to finish first.

For many people of my young and impatient generation, such a 2 Fast 2 Furious ethos permeates the dating scene as well.

Because if you're going to be a slow coach on the highway of love, be prepared to eat exhaust while the object of your affection vanishes into the horizon with the speed demon.

And we are prepared to tell 'unwelcome' passengers to take a hike. Indeed, some guy friends have set a time frame of three weeks to even one night to gauge if the girl is worth belting up alongside.

One of them, a tall bloke by the name of Low, not exactly my friend though, says: 'If there's a girl I like and we go out on the first date, I'll hit on her. But if there isn't any chemistry, I wouldn't waste time again and again.'

A female friend doesn't mind fast workers.

'They're decisive, quick to the point and know what they want. Who wants a dilly-dallying man who can't make a decision to save his life?' she says.

But why do so many of us embrace such a Speedy Gonzales approach towards dating? I hazard a few guesses.

A savvy and cosmopolitan bunch, my generation rode high on the Internet and telecommunication revolutions of the 1990s.

Such advances, while giving us instant access to information and people, have also accustomed us to getting what we want fast, fast and fast.

Then there are just too many things to do today. In the past, before HBO and MP3, people had all the time in the world to pluck petals off a dandelion and do the 'she loves me, she loves me not' roulette.

Now, with our time divided, how do you spare the time to serenade the person you like under her window?

Pampered by efficiency and increasing choices, instant gratification is the catchphrase of the day.

And that filters into the dating scene. Because, in the pressure cooker that is Singapore, we don't have the time or patience to cultivate relationships any more.

If you're not willing to commit or follow me back to my place after a drink or two, that's your loss, baby. I'll move on to someone else.

Then, there's the window of opportunity.

When boy meets girl and both display a liking for each other, what follows is an exciting time most suitable for romance to bloom.

That's usually the period after the initial meeting, when you don't know too much about the person but you like him or her enough to want to know more.

But it's important to strike during this window. Because when the mystery and magic lift and both settle down to being friends, all is lost.

One might argue that friends can still take it slow and let love blossom eventually. But I doubt it. If a girl is so comfortable with you as a buddy, why does she need you to be her boyfriend?

Is there that much more you can offer to her as a boyfriend that you can't as a normal friend?

Finally, my generation is cynical when it comes to relationships. We've seen too many childhood sweethearts blindly follow the Singaporean routine of signing up for a flat after college, only to realise later that that's not what they really want.

We've seen enough unhappy marriages, cheating spouses and KTV-visiting 'family men' to doubt the sanctity of holy matrimony.

We've also experienced way too many heartbreaks and failed pursuits to realise that the road to 'everlasting love' is paved with too many false promises and nasty surprises around the corner.

So why should we work slowly but surely towards something that might eventually fall apart anyway? Why not cut straight to the chase? And if your partner of choice gives you the finger, why not cut your losses and move on? Surely there's no such thing as a 'one true love'?

I, for one, am tired of the arduous process of meeting new people, of making polite chit-chat about favourite pastimes for the sake of finding that elusive perfect one.

Maybe I'll sing a different tune when I'm more mellow. Or when I've found someone whom I really wouldn't mind waiting for, no matter how long it takes, like that poor Taiwanese sod.

Until then, the quicker the courtship ritual, the better for me because life is too short to spend stuck in love roundabouts.