I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Last Friday, I had lunch with a bunch of Singaporeans studying at Stanford. Odd, I know. Let’s quickly rewind the deck so there is a little context here.

I work with a fellow Singaporean, who has made it his goal this year, to be more “social” and network-busy. Let’s call him Mr L. My friend Mr L is a product manager like me. In a nutshell, he’s an ACS boy with heartland sympathies and a penchant for catharsis.

Mr L has been diligently persisting at his 2012 goal, and met a few Stanford students at one of these Singaporean association functions. He then made the introduction to me, because someone professed an inclination to learn about “analytics”. Honestly, I’ve no freaking clue what it is, but am happy to share what I know.

It started out as lunch for two scholar-types who wanted to understand a little about working life here before heading back to fulfill their bonds. So we arranged to have lunch on-campus. It quickly turned into a social event, with another 4 Stanford students joining us, and we ended up having lunch at a good, cheap and very busy buffet place 2 minutes from campus.

So here I am, talking to Mr L, his newfound friends who are, by most accounts, Singapore’s intellectual elites of sorts – post grad Stanford students, some scholars. And I am reminded why I find local men dull.

They are.

And I do realise it is a blatant generalization. I’ve met interesting Singaporean men, I’ve even worked with several, but for the most part our population does not breed too many. And I do realise how offensive it might sound. But Singaporean men of my generation, are a pragmatic, uninspired bunch.

I’m not asking for roses and surprises, or cufflinks and red wine. I’m not even talking about cars and condos. Singaporean men just lack basic social refinements that handicap them in a globally connected world.

Maybe they are inherently shy. Maybe they don’t want to be seen as immodest. Maybe they just are being honest. But most cannot hold an engaging conversation with a larger, non-male group, or maneuver conversations. Heck, they can’t even take a compliment.

For example: we were talking about several things, but we got to talking about how someone in the group – we’ll call him Glasses – had no “checklist” when it came to settling down with his now-wife. My contention is, whether you admit it or not, you have one in your head. Physical or material, there is a checklist. I also ventured to say sometimes women (I would not put it past men, too) remove stuff of their checklist because of effort on the part of the other party, and obligation on their parts to make things work. Sometimes it doesn’t not end well because we changed our requirements, and those requirements may be fundamental.

But back to Glasses. He tells us how he met his wife at 16, went through school, etc and how they ended up married. He told us all that, to illustrate he was too young to have a checklist. I disagree, but whatever.

So to end, I said, “You’re a good man, but I don’t think everyone’s like you.” My friend, Mr L agrees with my statement, that Glasses is a good man.

Glasses, however, goes “Why? Why do you say that? You hardly know me.”

I think I handle too much crap to mollycoddle egos that way. Mr L, tries to illustrate. But my point is, if someone pays you a compliment, just take it. If you look within and don’t see it, no harm done. Just move on. Why make a compliment a point of contention?

The other men there, talked about cars and business, and even their business sense felt a little lacking to me. Business works, when it is mutually beneficial. Just because the Big Why is big, does not mean it needs to get into every business, or we can find a lot of money in healthcare, because “it is very expensive for people”. I fail to see the angle.

There were a couple of kids – the scholars. I liked them more, perhaps because you can put a lot of things down to youth, and perhaps they were a little more socially adept.

Perhaps we’ve let our local boys down. The boys’ schools, NS – makes them the Singaporean equivalent of valley girls, but obsessed with cars instead of make-up. Maybe in our unwavering efforts to bring up honest, stand-up men, we’ve forgotten to let these men know that there are certain social graces that you can’t deny, to fit into the rest of the world. It’s not dishonest, or immoral. It’s not even immodest.

It’s normal. And if your IQs are really that high, it should be really easy to pick it up.

I know I’d sell a lot of my family and friends short if I put them all in the same basket, and they’re not. Again, we have loads of talented, well adjusted men around. But I find a larger than normal proportion of socially inept Singaporean men, than men from other countries. Maybe it’s not just a gender thing, maybe it’s a woman thing too. I guess I haven’t been paying attention there.

And maybe it’s just me.

But here’s my point: we’ve moved beyond third world, we’re all educated well, let’s grow up a little and be a little bigger.