WITH his Vietnamese wife sitting beside him, engineering officer Lim Wee Bin enumerates the different ways he had tried to find a Singaporean partner.

He joined the state-run matchmaking agency, the Social Development Service (SDS), where he tried its speed dating service.

He joined the People's Association youth group.

He went canoeing and trekking as a member of the NTUC Club.

He joined a Toastmasters Club.

Ten years passed and he was no closer to winning the hand of a Singaporean woman.

'Even the computer matchmaking service I tried at SDS turned up zero matches,' recounts the 37-year-old ruefully. 'And I was very lax about my requirements. I ticked every box - even if she had just primary school education, it's no problem!'

The problem was the high expectations of Singaporean women, says Mr Lim, who stopped schooling after his O levels.

'But I don't blame them. In this society, you're used to branded goods, a certain lifestyle. If I ask you to drop your standards, it's not right too.'

Thin and slightly balding, Mr Lim is pleasant, very articulate and speaks candidly of the problems confronting him and his peers.

Less well-educated men in Singapore face a bigger problem finding partners compared to their female counterparts, who tend to marry up.

The latest official figures show that men who did not complete secondary school are most likely to stay single.

About one-quarter of these men between the age of 40 and 44 are single. In contrast, just 11 per cent of graduate men are bachelors.

The reverse is true for women: About one-quarter of graduates aged 40 to 44 are single, against 11 per cent for those who did not finish secondary school.

Although Mr Lim lacks paper qualifications, he is clearly self-driven.

Realising that the fast food industry he had joined after school gave him few opportunities for getting ahead, he quit.He crossed into the aerospace industry but had to take a pay cut, from $1,400 to $950.

Today, with the help of night classes, he has worked his way up and draws a monthly salary a tad below $2,000.

But the sum was not good enough for Singaporean women. Some of the women he had approached told him candidly that he fell short of their expectations.

Three years ago, as his personal deadline of getting married by 35 drew near, Mr Lim asked for help from a friend working in Vietnam.

The latter passed a photo of Mr Lim to a friend, Ms Tran Thi Ngo Phuong, then 29 and a finance and banking graduate.

They began e-mailing each other and, soon after, she flew to Singapore for a visit.

They hit it off and two months later, he visited her in Ho Chi Minh City where, without fanfare, they discussed marriage.

Within a year, they had tied the knot with a ceremony in Vietnam and another in Singapore.

'My friends and family members thought I was very lucky,' says the soft-spoken Ms Phuong, whose previous relationship failed because her Vietnamese boyfriend's traditional mother disapproved of her having a finance degree.

'He (Mr Lim) is very nice and considerate, unlike Vietnamese men who would drink and smoke and chit-chat after work every day and do not help with the housework. He cooks too.'

The couple live with his 70-year-old mother in a three-room HDB flat in Whampoa. They have applied for a four-room flat in Punggol.

It seems that Mr Lim has finally found domestic bliss, but there is a fly in the ointment.

Six months ago, their daughter Jessica was born.

Soon after, she was sent to her maternal grandmother in Vietnam.

The reason: the cost of infant care in Singapore.

The average monthly fee for full-day infant care is $1,165, up 10 per cent from $1,063 four years ago.

Although the Government gives a $400 monthly subsidy for working mothers, the fee still amounts to a sizeable chunk of the couple's combined income. Ms Phuong earns $1,000 as an accounts assistant.

The rising cost of living has further eroded their income.

'We don't earn much and we'd rather save the money for her education when she grows up,' says Mr Lim.

Her voice husky, Ms Phuong adds: 'We watch her on webcam every night.'

They plan to bring their daughter back to Singapore when she turns two and can be placed in a childcare centre where fees average about $670.

As for a second child?

Mr Lim hesitates and says: 'We'd like to have two if we can. But not for the next three years.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 12, 2008.