I'm now happily attached, but there was a time in my life when I was really active on Tinder. And when there's Tinder, there's A LOT of army boys. I used to really like army boys because they're really fit and boyish and I probably just have a uniform fetish in general... and yeah, for some reason the ones on Tinder looked really cute.

I actually dated a total of 3 army boys throughout my 5-year tinder lifespan - which isn't a lot, but the romantic experiences I had with each and every one of them were very different.

I'm still friends with some of them and looking back now, dating an army boy is like entering some kind of LDR. But it's really interesting now when remember the times I was an "NS girlfriend".

So let's take a military march down memory lane.

This guy was the FIRST army boy I ever dated and we actually knew each other from school before swiping on each other on Tinder. I wasn't THAT into him because I just took it as just friends getting to know each other, but I wasn't closed off to the idea of becoming more.

This was sometime during my graduating month in Poly, and I was still living with my aunt at Tampines. Since he was stationed at Tekong, we could meet each other during his nights out and hang out for a couple of hours. It was nice to get to see him every now and then, but our dates were very short and we didn't really get a lot of quality time together. When he did have longer free times, we'd just go watch a movie, have dinner, or get drinks.

He could use his phone quite frequently in camp, but there were times when he would just disappear for hours on end and I'd be like bruhwtfyd??? Touch my heart, I knew he was a little bit shady and was probably still seeing other girls on Tinder - not that I minded tbh, but he really was a shady little umbrella because he even blocked me from seeing his IG stories.

At that point in time, I wasn't ready for a relationship with him. Actually, I wasn't ready for one AT ALL. I just didn't see us going that far, and I knew he liked me but wasn't ready to commit either. He did tell me he felt a bit confused because he was stuck in army and all that, but he wanted to see what happened.

But girls - when a guy says he's "confused", it just means he doesn't like you enough.

A month plus into dating we started becoming passive aggressive with one another because he was just taking FOREVER to reply and I was getting fed up with it and fed up with him. Sometime here he also started hinting at the possibility of becoming FWBs which I politely turned down because I really didn't want to get hurt.

Around this time I also started talking to this guy from NUS, who will later become the person I hate the most on this entire earth. I'll link a post down below, you can go check it out.

But yeah I was talking to this other guy, and I told the army boy that I didn't want to be exclusive and was still talking to other guys (which is probably why karma hit me so hard later on with the NUS guy, LOL). He was a little bit hurt, but insisted on trying with the FWB thing. I think at one point I lashed out and we stopped talking to each other.

Later, he texted me a few more times and even commented on my pics on IG, but I didn't reply because I was really a bit tired with the whole relationship. So yeap.

Thank you, next!

A lot of people say that the relationship I had with this dude was toxic, but I think it was just our clashing personalities.

When I got my heart battered by the NUS guy, I was still on OkCupid and this was when I met Army Boy 2. I think I was back in Malaysia when we first started talking, and I told him about my whole sob story. He was a very eccentric individual and somewhat egocentric, but I found him really interesting. He also had a very unique and straightforward way of saying things which I appreciated, and was very intelligent.

And also, he was very horny.

He sent me dick pics within hours of us talking on IG which made me a little uncomfortable, so I told him that I wasn't looking for sex. But of course being the person he is, he just continued sending them to me and after a while I just got used to it.

We actually had to wait 3-4 weeks to see each other in person since I was overseas. And I think things progressed quite slowly at first. I told him NO sex within the first few weeks of dating, and that I wasn't going to have a FWB relationship with him. So during this time of celibacy, we sorta just hung out together at the mall, at the park, at bars, and sometimes at his home.

He was also someone pretty alpha (I can imagine him smiling if he read this) and often made the first move. I remember our first kiss at the cinema where he just did it SO SUDDENLY, and he would often be the one to make plans, decide where to go, what to do etc. The first few months together were really pretty nice.

Of course we broke the celibacy contract after awhile, but that was when things got mostly sexual and it was super tiring for me. I slept over at his place at least once a week after work, and he basically had to sneak me in because he lived with his parents and younger brother. I'd reach his place about 5am in the morning, shower, and then he'd want to have sex. It was so exhausting for me especially after working for 8 hours, but I never said no because he would get cranky. Is this an army boy thing to be constantly horny? Idk.

Dating him was relatively easy because he had a lot of free time and always made excuses to leave camp. He was also always on his phone, so we could text all the time. Zuobo was always what he referred to himself as, and I guess he really was since all he did was smoke and watch Netflix. He probably only went outfield twice during the period we dated, but even then we texted almost constantly, and he always told me when he was going to be busy.

He came to Hall to visit me a few times, but he really hated coming over. Like me, he really didn't like NUS/NTU kids/ Hall kids and found them to be stuck up and annoying. He also knew about my issues with Hall, but he didn't get why I was so affected by "childish people" and "childish things". Honestly, I can see where he's coming from because it's really difficult to see how toxic Hall life is when you're someone on the outside. But in the end it was just really difficult for us to accept each other's shortcomings and different lifestyles, so we broke it up.

The days leading up to the breakup, I already knew that things weren't gonna work out and was back on Tinder, swiping away my tears. So the day we broke up, I immediately rebounded on to Army Boy 3 who I was already seeing for at least 1 week. But also on the night of the day we broke up, I drank a lot and changed my Tinder profile picture to something that eventually led me to my current boyfriend. But that's a story for another day, and trust me, it's more interesting than this.

I'm still friends with Army Boy 2 and we've since moved on to other people. I still cherish him as a friend, and whenever I see him around or at the club I still feel really happy because after all, he was the one who stayed by my side when I first started uni.

It's really difficult to condense 3-4 months of dating into a few paragraphs, but just know that I look back on the times we had with a smile!

One thing you should know is that I actually met ALL these 3 guys in the same year - 2018. I met Army Boy 3 sometime in November, and after all the failed relationships and having my heart smashed and bashed repeatedly, I was really, really done.

I think at this point I had already given up on love and finding a decent person to love me back, because every guy was either a jerk or I was just too difficult to love. When I matched Army Boy 3 on Tinder, we started talking and within a few hours he was on a bus down to my Hall. Say real, sex wasn't on my mind. I just really wanted a distraction.

I remember the first thing he said to me when he saw me was, "wtf you look so much better than your pictures, I thought you really couldn't make it".

Ouch bro. I really didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted when he said that, but I guess he didn't find me THAT ugly since things immediately escalated. He asked me what I wanted to be, and I said I could try being FWBs. Look, at this time, I was just DONE with romantic relationships and wanted someone to numb the pain. But yes - I deserve to be judged, so go ahead.

Army Boy 3 was a year younger than me, and he quite adorable. In like, a cute boyish way. He was also from SP but graduated a year ahead of me, so we had a lot of common topics. We didn't really have a "connection", but we enjoyed our time together. He was my first FWB, but I wasn't his first, but according to him, I was the first that he actually felt something special for. I may be naive to believe what he said, but he was really sweet and often made me food when I was hungry and entertained himself while I studied for finals in his room. Looking back, we were probably more friends than friends with benefits.

The main reason we broke it off was because it was SO DIFFICULT for us to meet. He rarely came out on weekends and was always sent overseas. At one point, he was sent over to Australia for 2 weeks, and I was like TWO WEEKS? I'm fine if this was a relationship but a FWB is practically useless if he's never around.

Basically, he was a rare pokemon.

While we were seeing each other, we were both still swiping on Tinder. I was probably talking to my current boyfriend during the weeks Army Boy 3 was in Australia, and I actually told him that I may be considering getting serious with someone else.

I think this marked the start of things getting complicated, because he got a bit jealous and didn't want to talk to me. I did like him, so I asked him, "What am I to you?", and he said he was starting to have feelings but wasn't ready to be in a relationship since he was in army. So I told him, look, I totally get it. But I'm starting to think there's someone who can potentially be "The One" (and I was right!), and I'm not going to continue this FWB relationship if it's just going to be like this forever.

So we broke it off for awhile. He still sent me texts now and then saying he missed me and wanted to try dating for real. So we tried again, but it just didn't feel right and he still wasn't ready. Once, he actually said "let's date" in the middle of doing it and I was like what? But later on when I confirmed it with him, he said he only blurted it out in the heat of the moment.

Dude.

But yeah, it really didn't work out and were constantly on and off. He even came to my workplace once and asked to meet me during my break, which I did. He told me he was confused about his feelings, and I said I wasn't having any of that shit, but I remember being SO DRUNK and sad for some reason that night that I agreed to go back to his place.

Anyway, we shared a bed that night, but nothing more. After lunch, we talked a bit and left for the last time. I feel a bit bad because it seemed like I was really eager to leave him, when in fact I was just trying to cut things off for the sake of the both of us. I really didn't want to hurt him then.

When I finally got together with my boyfriend, he actually send me a congratulatory text on Instagram. I even helped him get guest lists for the club I worked at a couple times. We're still friends, although it's a little awkward.

And of course my boyfriend knows all about this, so all's good!

To be really frank, dating army boys were a challenge for me because I'm someone who is very needy. Distance isn't something I deal with well, and it's just difficult to have a proper relationship when you're apart. I guess it's different if I was dating someone for awhile and then they enlisted, but I'll never ever date a guy I just met who's currently in NS.

So yeah that concludes my experience dating guys in the army. It was a fun ride, but a ride I'll never go back on.

Love this post? Feel free to share and comment below or find out what happened between me and a certain dickhead mentioned above in my next blog post.