If there is something more awkward than needing help to improve your love life, it is having your parents try to give you that leg-up.

Customer service agent P. Lewis, 25, recalls waking up one morning last year to find a friend of her mother's at her home, ostensibly to help "move things".

She says: "When I saw him, my mother said: 'Oh, meet my daughter - she's single.' It was so embarrassing and I hadn't even washed my face."

While she admits her mother's network is "better" because she mingles more, she says her mother's pleas that "he is a nice guy, give him a chance" will fall on deaf ears. "Because, I don't know how to put this nicely, I'm not interested."

Dates set up by parents put a damper on any potential sizzle, says Ms Tan Siling, 24, a human resource executive. "At the back of your head, you're thinking, 'My parents want me to do this.' So there's resistance and the date feels forced."

Her boyfriend, undergraduate Jonathan Liang, 24, whom she met through a mutual friend, adds: "Even if the girl introduced by the parents were perfect from the guy's point of view, I'd still not feel comfortable with the parents' hand involved."

So how is a friend's matchmaking different from a parent's? With the latter, there is more "obligation", especially if the person being introduced is a family friend.

Ms Tan says: "It's like, 'This is my best friend's daughter. Be nice to her and go on a few dates. Don't make me lose face.'"

With friends, she says "they don't pressure you to settle down".

"They merely say, 'Hey, if you like this girl, I will hook you up - but only if you are interested.'"

Church coordinator Steven Lai, 55, who has counselled young adults aged 18 to 30, says the youth would prefer independence, especially in this area.

But if parents mean well and want to help, the meeting they arrange should take place on "neutral ground" - like at a mutual friend's home, with parents absent, he adds. Otherwise, the situation might not look pretty.

"If, for some reason, the guy or girl wants to say, 'Thanks but no thanks', things can be awkward between the parents and the young people and between the young people themselves, especially if they move in the same circles," says Mr Lai.

But if youngsters are not keen on parents' involvement, why does dating agency Clique Wise organise Parents Connections, an event for parents to suss out potential matches for their children?

The Feb 2 event at the Singapore Turf Club drew about 60 parents, including a handful of single daughters.

Clique Wise held two other similar sessions five years ago, according to its founder Lydia Gan, 39. She says: "Parents are asking for the event because they find their children are too busy with careers with no time to socialise."

By attending the event, parents hope to get some contacts which they can at least pass to their unattached children, she adds.

What was interesting in the most recent event was that parents were nudging their single daughters - in their 20s - to start dating earlier compared to the previous two sessions, when most of the single women were in the 30s and 40s, notes Ms Gan.

"We have also received more than 100 phone inquiries from parents, asking if we will hold another parental matchmaking session as they could not attend the recent one because they were busy preparing for Chinese New Year."

The first event, which was free and held at Hong Lim Park, drew 200 parents. The second one, which was ticketed and also held at the turf club, drew 80 parents.

Teacher S. Alsagoff, 28, on the other hand, wanted to be matchmade. Her husband, a 32-year-old oil and gas tank inspector, was introduced to her by his relatives.

"I didn't want to find a guy on my own. I trust elder folks to make better choices than me," says Ms Alsagoff, who saw happy examples of matchmade couples in her family and the "heartbreak" of friends who dated and broke up, which is a "waste of time".

Married in 2011, she and her husband live in an executive flat in Pasir Ris with their eight-month-old daughter. She adds: "For matchmade couples, you come in committed to making things work. No complaints like, 'I don't love my husband anymore.'"

Also banking on parents' choice are teacher Wendy Koh and Mr Gabriel Teo, a client support manager. The couple, both 27, were brought together by housewife Neo Chwee Ching, 59, a mutual friend of both their mums'.

Ms Koh's widowed mum Sin Fong Moi, 51, a customer service officer, had asked Madam Neo for a form to sign up the elder of her two daughters for a singles' event at their church early last year.

But Madam Neo says: "Gabriel's name came to me from out of the blue. The form was never filled up."

Instead, she got the young man's e-mail address from his mother and gave it to Madam Sin.

Ms Koh says: "I was reluctant to meet him after I came to know about the arrangement. On top of that, I was asked to make the first move by dropping Gabriel an e-mail."

But she did contact him after Madam Neo "called nine times, asking if my mother had given me Gabriel's e-mail".

She sent a perfunctory note via Facebook: "It went, 'Hi, Aunty praised you to the sky and told me to e-mail you and be friends. So here you go, 'hello'."

His "quick, warm reply", asking which church she attended, won her over.

A month later, he rode his motorbike from his parents' executive maisonette in Tampines, picked her up at her four-room flat a few minutes away and took her to a dim sum coffee shop in Balestier.

She still had "mixed feelings" because they were "opposites".

"He told me he used to cut class to play football or hang out at the mall with friends in Secondary 2 or 3. To me, as a teacher, that was unacceptable."

Ironically, it was because he was "comfortable" with her that he talked and revealed so much about himself.

After some time of "getting to know each other, we decided to embark on a serious courtship", which lasted seven months, says Ms Koh. They got engaged early this month.

She adds: "The feeling of knowing that our parents played a part in putting us together and the blessings they give us as a result - especially when the relationship works out - is a really assuring and happy one."

Her mother, Madam Sin, is reassured too: She trusts her good friend Madam Neo, who has known Mr Teo since he was a young boy.

Of the part she played in their union, Madam Sin says: "She scanned one time already. Okay."

Mr Teo's parents - taxi driver Peter Teo, 60, and administrative manager Lee Lyn, 59 - share the same view about Ms Koh.

And there is no need for young people to be antsy about parents playing Cupid, notes the elder Mr Teo. He says: "Matchmaking is such an old-fashioned word. We were just pulling strings."

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