TWO years ago, I met someone on a park bench.

I was early for an interview and she happened to walk by.

We chatted for a bit.

Five days later, we bumped into each other again at Vivo City.

Next month,we will be getting married.

Friends, when we tell them this story, like to say with a sigh: “Yuan fen.” (Mandarin for “fate”).

But “yuan fen” is furthest from the Government’s mind as it tries to get Singaporeans to meet and marry.

Recently, it announced another round of changes to its match-making efforts.I’m not cynical about these efforts. There are many Singaporeans who do benefit.

But what is important to recognise is that there will be a limit to its success.

Many Singaporeans will never consider match-making.

With them, the new Social Development Network (SDN) shouldn’t even bother trying (more so, with tax-payers’ money).

What SDN should do more of is encourage couples to go for counselling.

Do more to help us stay in love.

In other words, try playing agony aunt.

After all, staying in love is the trickier part.

When my fiancee and I decided to try out counselling, after a bad argument once, marriage was not the immediate goal. It was more about making a commitment to each other that we wanted to make this work.

Though we saw ourselves as life partners, we couldn’t, in the too-often-heard words of my fiancee, “communicate”.

The information for counselling services wasn’t difficult to find.

And at $200 to $300 for three to five sessions, it’s hard to say whether it was expensive or cheap.

Anyway, we signed up.

Many others, more practical or facing financial burdens, would not have done so.

Face-conscious couples may also baulk at the idea.

There is something of a stigma attached to it, not quite a strong one but it’s there, I discovered to my surprise.

Counselling came across to my friends, many of them graduates in their 20s, as an unfamiliar point in a couple’s natural journey.

Either they jumped with joy (thinking I had already proposed) or it bewildered them, often moments after hearing the cute story of how we met.

Why such a kill-joy after the romance?

The One

When young Singaporeans talk of marriage, they often speak of finding The One.

It is an important idea.

But it is also capable of creating a false impression – that love requires no work and perfection awaits, if only you find it.

When reality hits, there is only a logical conclusion: He or she was not The One.

So you bail out, and go on searching, heart aching, yet confident of finding this Holy Grail eventually.

Some blame the low birth rate on the belief that Singaporeans aren’t romantic. I don’t think that’s true.

We may scrimp on flowers. But deep down, many of us hold on to this very pure idea of what love is.

That’s why counselling can be a strange idea.

It is being overly romantic, rather than insufficiently so, that may actually lie at the root of the issue the Government is trying to tackle.

But romance, like love, can come in many forms. Two years ago, I saw the romance of a chance meeting on a park bench.

Now, I see the beauty of what came after wards, in the compromises, misunderstandings and fights, as we fell, then learnt to stay, in love.

This article was first published in The New Paper