Connection

Lee said they had a connection that was "easy" and "comfortable", and bonded both over weird things like "gross pus videos on YouTube" and heart-to-heart talks about their lives and their families.

Still, there was the fact that Ou was then based in Los Angeles, while Lee had an entire life and career here that she was not willing to give up.

In the middle of 2011, she went to Los Angeles and the couple had a conversation about whether they could make the relationship work.

The consensus then?

Not going to happen.

"I'm not his ideal girl, he still hadn't got over his ex-girlfriend, I'm not Caucasian," she said, with another bout of eye-rolling. "There were all these reasons."

Now, her biggest complaint about him is that he is clumsy (he, meanwhile, thinks she's "mean").

"He has, like, no spatial awareness. If there's a chair there, why would you walk straight into it?" she said, with another eye roll.

When he moved back to Singapore after 13 years of being away, he was eager to make rounds in different social circles to network and get back into the fray.

Lee was not so keen.

"He would tell me, 'Why are you so mean, why you don't like anybody? Why do I need to get your permission to hang out with these people?'" she said with a laugh.

Her defence is that she's trying to look out for him.

"He's the new kid here, so a bit poor thing lah, he wants to make friends. But I feel sometimes he's too nice, so I have to point out who isn't nice, who's fake," she said.

She conceded, though, that she has mellowed a bit, thanks to his badgering.

"He counterbalances my negativity and my angst, but I'm still judgmental," she said. "Some of his positivity has rubbed off on me," she grudgingly admitted.

Ou's appearance in her life has been the icing on the cake for Lee, who spent a few years rediscovering herself.

When they met in early 2011, Lee had just spent two years being single, after being in a "chain of relationships that ended badly".

She has dated local fashion designer Wykidd Song and local musician Ngak Ng. During that time off to find herself, she travelled to Los Angeles and Las Vegas - where she skydived - with her girlfriend Gillian Tan, founder of online video network Clicknetwork.

She then travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a whim with a stranger she met in a bar in Los Angeles.

"It was amazing and uplifting," she said.

"I was in and out of relationships for nine years, and it stemmed from a neediness that probably came from my dad not being around," she said, candidly revealing that she'd talked her issues over with a therapist - whom she no longer sees - a few times.

"When parents split up, and leave a female child to grow up without a dad, the girl will look for a daddy figure in the boyfriend," said Lee, who has a younger brother, 31-year-old Ryan.

Lee's father left Singapore for Brunei when he was posted there in 1987. He later converted to Islam and married a Bruneian (he was formerly a Roman Catholic).