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wah they should advertise or be sponsor in MCF given the concentration of HNWI and UHNWI tiko forumers here Matchmaking firm Men's Elite Club targets high net worth individuals By Joyce Hooi [email protected] @JoyceHooiBT print |email this article Singapore YOUR doe-eyed Korean dream girl might be within closer reach than you think. If you have S$10,000 in your bank account and a hole in your heart, there is a chance that It's Just Lunch Asia, a matchmaking firm, will ask your favourite actress out on a date for you. Anisa Hassan is doing just that for a client - one of the 28 members of her agency's new service, the Men's Elite Club. "He was like, 'I know her from this movie and that movie, and she has all the attributes that I'm looking for . . .' He's from a Scandinavian country . . . he likes only Asian women, specifically from Korea," Ms Anisa says. "And he says, 'Can you broach this meeting for me, even if it's just for lunch?'" To be sure, this client is an outlier even in the agency's new universe of premium dating. The club which was started about a year ago charges S$10,000 for 10 guaranteed dates with women - regular ones who are unlikely to be movie stars - within 12 months. Even if Mysterious Korean Actress does have lunch with Scandinavian Bachelor With A Penchant For Asian Women (cliffhanger moment: we don't know yet whether she will), he should be able to meet nine other ladies who are either drawn from It's Just Lunch's database or from outside it. The men in this club are high net worth individuals - a mix of MNC CEOs, business owners and, intriguingly enough, one local politician's son. "They're very dignified gentlemen. It's not that they can't attract the women . . . they don't want to attract women who are looking for a one-way ticket out," Ms Anisa says. "They want to be with somebody who looks good, who can carry herself well . . . but at the same time, they want a woman with brains - an intelligent, confident lady who knows what she wants." For S$1,000 a date, Elite Club membership comes with other perks - the man is able to see photos of female candidates before committing to a date. Standard membership - open to both sexes at S$2,400 for 10 dates - does not offer photos. Elite Club members are also able to get pre-date answers to specific questions - such as whether the woman in question is open to having children or if she would be willing to relocate - which would otherwise cause awkward silences on a first date. "That element of surprise, we take that away. Everybody wants certainty," Ms Anisa explains. Already, one of her elite clients has ostensibly found a happy ending. The man, a partner at a consulting firm, got engaged to a lady that the agency set him up with, on just one date. "The next thing we knew, he didn't want to go out (on other dates) anymore. He got a return on his investment almost immediately," Ms Anisa says. This particular chap possessed a touch of whimsy - the question that he had wanted relayed to the lady before his date was: "What does happiness mean to you?" For future reference, the winning answer was: Stroking her dog when she comes home, being with family and travelling roads less-travelled. Finally, a use for Rover, relatives and Robert Frost. All is fair in love, which is also war. For regular folk - as in, S$2,400-for-10-dates sort of regular - there is also hope. Over the last decade - the agency turned 10 last month - 400 known marriages have resulted from its matches, Ms Anisa says. About 60 per cent of its first dates lead to second dates. Not all happy endings come as easily. Ms Anisa's speech is peppered with combat-worthy metaphors such as "down in the trenches", "crossfire" and "shooting the messenger". It is a DEFCON 1 situation of maximum readiness out there - but mostly for the women. There was the lady, for example, who said that she wanted to be matched with somebody living in Districts 9, 10 or 11. "And that's when I said, 'I don't match according to postal code'," Ms Anisa deadpanned. "We can laugh about it now, but at that time she was dead serious." In contrast, men think dating is a hoot-and-a-half. "The men are very light-hearted about it . . . they want to cast their nets wide or they want to sow their wild oats," she says. "Women . . . always have this view that (dating) has to lead to something serious." Could it be, that for S$240 a date, they are justified in expecting such an outcome? "It could be," she agrees. "But you know what, it could be more than that if they're out there dating at pubs and clubs. So it is an affordable luxury, where they know all the information about the gentleman that they're going to meet." And unlike men who come with more open parameters, women's are narrower. "The list goes on for the women: 'I want him to be like this, he has to be this'," Ms Anisa recounts. Men, too, have their lists, she concedes, but they're not as "aggressive" about them. "For men, I know what they want. They want lightness. They want femininity. They want agreeableness in a relationship. They don't want people to disagree with them," she says. Women who aren't these things opt themselves out, she believes. "You alienate yourself because you don't want to see that these (attributes) are what men are attuned to look for. Between a woman with a dress and a woman who's wearing pants, they would gravitate towards the woman in the dress anytime," she says. "You have to work . . . with the highest chance of being picked, because men want to do the picking." Now, as the Men's Elite Club takes off, Ms Anisa is in the process of setting up a female equivalent of the elite club, priced at S$5,000 a head. There, perhaps, women will get to wear the pants and do the picking.