SHAH ALAM - Tired of swiping through endless profiles hoping to find someone who actually gets you?
Singapore’s government has an unusual suggestion - stop swiping and let an algorithm pick one.
The Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) has launched FirstDate, a pilot matchmaking platform for unmarried public officers aged 21 to 35 that promises a very different dating experience.
Instead of giving users an endless stream of profiles, FirstDate gives them one recommended match per cycle, or roughly once a month.
The idea is simple - fewer choices, more time to consider the person in front of you.
“Swipe fatigue ends here,” the platform’s website declares.
This is not just any algorithm.
FirstDate uses the Gale-Shapley Stable Marriage algorithm, a mathematical approach developed by economists David Gale and Lloyd Shapley to find stable pairings between two groups based on their preferences.
Shapley’s work on stable matching later contributed to him receiving the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which he shared with Alvin Roth.
According to GovTech, the algorithm generates pairings based on participants’ preferences and recommends matches based on compatibility.
One match instead of hundreds
The FirstDate experiment starts with a questionnaire.
Participants log in through Singpass, Singapore’s national digital identity system, and answer 30 questions about their interests, habits, lifestyle, food and travel preferences.
They are also asked about relationship preferences, including the youngest and oldest ages they would consider dating, their “hard nos” and whether they want children.
The system then uses those answers to identify a potential match.
When a match is made, both people receive an SMS and have 72 hours to decide whether they want to connect.
Only the matched users can view each other’s profiles. Contact details are released only when both parties agree.
Each match also comes with a compatibility score, information about the other person and a personal note.
If there is no spark, users can wait for the next cycle.
The platform even offers suggested activities, called Date Quests, to help matched users break the ice.
GovTech said the pilot was designed to test whether putting greater emphasis on shared values and preferences, while offering fewer matches at a time, could provide users with a “different dating experience”.
Why not just use a dating app?
The biggest difference is choice.
Traditional dating apps allow users to browse large pools of potential partners, often making decisions based heavily on photographs and quick impressions.
FirstDate deliberately removes that abundance.
Can maths really find chemistry?
The Gale-Shapley algorithm is designed to create stable matches, not guarantee love.
According to CNA report, based on the system it does not mean everyone receives their first-choice partner. Instead, it seeks pairings where there is no alternative pairing in which both people would prefer each other over their assigned partners.
FirstDate itself is careful about what the algorithm can promise.
“Compatibility on paper doesn’t guarantee chemistry or a match leading to a relationship,” the company said on its website says. “Where it goes from there is up to you.”
That distinction matters because conventional dating apps have another source of information that FirstDate does not have at the beginning - users’ actual behaviour.
On commercial platforms, the way people swipe, interact and respond to profiles can reveal preferences that may differ from what they say they want in a questionnaire.
FirstDate is testing whether a more deliberate, preference-based approach can produce better introductions.
The concept itself is not completely new to Singapore.
Singapore has tried playing Cupid before
The government has a long history of getting involved in the matchmaking business.
In 1984, Singapore established the Social Development Unit (SDU) to encourage university-educated singles to meet, marry and have children.
The programme later evolved into the Social Development Network before its website was eventually shut down in 2023 as private dating apps became more prominent.
The Straits Times reported that the SDU had helped facilitate thousands of matches over the years, while Singapore eventually shifted towards working with private-sector dating agencies and matchmakers.
FirstDate arrives in a very different dating environment — but against a familiar demographic concern.
Singapore’s resident total fertility rate fell to a record-low 0.87 births per woman in 2025, from 0.97 in 2024.
According to the Singapore Department of Statistics, the median age at first marriage also rose to 31.1 for grooms and 29.6 for brides in 2025, compared with 30.3 and 28.2 a decade earlier.
Other Asian governments are also experimenting with matchmaking.
Tokyo’s government-backed Tokyo Enmusubi had about 17,000 registered users and recorded 835 couples in serious relationships and 316 marriages as of Aug 31, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
Seoul has also run Seoulting, with the city’s government reporting 13,854 applications across five events and 126 matched couples.
But FirstDate is not promising to solve Singapore’s demographic problem with one algorithm.
It is, for now, testing a smaller question: Can giving people one carefully selected option instead of endless choices make dating less exhausting — and perhaps make it easier to say yes to the possibility of something real?
For Singapore’s young public officers, they may soon find out