Incidentally, quite a few of you believed in the iPhone travel application we dreamt up – which perhaps proves that it is either possible or desired. One news organization asked if they could run it with an image while a few wanted to know how they could download it.
And some names were offered – Check-Mate, GoCupid and Hunk Solo. One of you responded, calling the app “rather disturbing”. “Now it’s your single status, what’s next? Your health status? Easier for the organs trafficker to find the lone traveller with the best organ fit?”
Yes, anything’s possible in the world we live in – which leads me to this week’s true story.
About a month ago, a programmer friend of mine working at Activants, a web development agency in Singapore, was showing me a mobile phone application he had developed for a major tech company, which begins with the letter M.
The application is called “Truth or Dare”, and is aimed at lubricating the flow of conversation between couples on blind dates.
This, by the way, (facilitating the art of matchmaking, not mobile phone applications) is serious business in Singapore although one could also argue the latter has as much potential.
Faced with a dwindling population among Singaporeans, the government has been throwing all kinds of incentives at their folks to make babies and thinking up all kinds of schemes for people to meet, match and marry.
In the old days, this was the task of the Social Development Unit but since the name did not actually inspire romance, it’s morphed into other forms of match-making endeavours such as Romancing Singapore, or something like that.
Smelling money to be made, all kinds of businesses have also cropped up with the sole intention of helping people find their soul mates.
Hence the mobile phone game. Curious, I tried playing it with my friend. The first “Truth” question was, “If you had the chance to be reborn as someone else, which person would you choose and why?”
My answer: Dylan, my dog, because he’s got the best life of anyone I know.
The second question, “Would you rather be tortured to death by a beautiful person of the opposite sex or kissed passionately by an ugly person of the same sex?”
My answer: The latter because I’d live to tell the tale.
Some of the “Dare” suggestions were quite, well, daring – like, exchange your top with the player on your left or elect another player to give a butt massage to; you must knead, massage, and squeeze their butt for one complete round.
At that time, I had a vague thought that this could have an interesting application for conference organisers and wondered if I could use it at WIT-Web In Travel as an ice-breaker …
I then dismissed it from my mind until I read an article that talked about an event coming up in Singapore called “Real Love Works 2010”. The article said this company, Marriage Central, had come up with a game, “In his shoes, in her heels”.
To be available at eateries, the game involves question cards that prompt couples to talk about topics such as: What was your nickname as a child? Where did we go on our first date?
“It’s a way to get couples to talk about issues they would not usually discuss,” said Evelyn Khong, a consultant for the game. “We hope through this game, couples will have fun, discover new things about each other, and this will in turn spark off an interest to attend more marriage enrichment activities together.”
I then read an article about how couples were using Facebook to have public spats. “Whether through nagging wall posts or antagonistic changes to their ‘relationship’ status, the social networking site is proving to be as good for broadcasting marital discord as it is for sharing vacation photographs. At 400 million members and growing, Facebook might just replace restaurants as the go-to place for couples to cause a scene,” said the article by Douglas Quenqua.
So there you go – we need mobile phones and games to help us find love, and when we’ve found it, we need social networks to air our grievances.
Featured image credit (red hearts fly out of the smartphone) : iStock
