Built-to-Order Romances

This article is centrally concerned with how couples in Singapore who are attempting to secure a public housing flat rearrange romantic projects to hedge against the financial risks of relationship breakdown or tinker with romantic temporalities to hedge against the uncertainties of balloting. Through examining the strategies Singaporean couples use to manage the uncertainties of the ballot—preemptive planning, microcalibration, and romantic hedging—I suggest that risk does not just disappear but rather is absorbed and folded into the life fibers of individual intimate projects. I argue that risk to the state is mediated and managed through the rhythms of personal romantic time, or conversely, that personal romantic time is a way of synchronizing the self to the state and its building project of your home.