30 yo man says his friends ‘shames him’ for not having a driver’s license

SINGAPORE: Society can be harsh, but have things really reached the point where someone gets judged simply for not having a driver’s license?

Recently, a 30-year-old local shared on Reddit that he found himself in this exact situation.

In his post on the r/SingaporeR subreddit on Tuesday (Sept 16), he wrote that his friends have “always shamed him” for not having a license.

In his defence, however, he said that he never really had an interest in getting one because “the public transportation and Grabs are already so accessible.”

Conflicted about this issue, he asked fellow users, “Should I really take one just because people are pressuring me, even though I don’t need it? What are your thoughts?”

“I do not see the point of owning one on top of the crazy COE price, car maintenance, and petrol.”

Singaporean Redditors quickly took to the comments, encouraging the man not to give in to the pressure of getting a license just because others expected it of him. 

To make him feel less alone, several users openly shared that they, too, had reached their 30s, 40s, or even 50s without a license and that it had never posed a serious problem in their day-to-day lives.

“Shaking my head … I’m in my late 40s, and I do not have a driving license. I do not see the point of owning one on top of the crazy COE price, car maintenance, and petrol, so don’t feel bad about yourself for not owning one,” one wrote.

“Thirty-two and no real intention of learning how to drive either. I mean, I have the gist of it in the case that I happen to need to drive in a life-or-death situation, but otherwise, yeah, nah, I’m good with not getting a license. I don’t know about you, but personally, driving looks a little too stressful for me to want to bother with,” another commented.

“I’m 54, I’ve lived in London, Tokyo, and Singapore, and I’ve never learnt to drive. I’ve never needed to. I do not understand why anyone would want a car in Singapore,” a third shared.

Many also argued that getting one should depend entirely on lifestyle and necessity, not on outdated notions of what an adult “should” have achieved by a certain age.

A few others also advised the man to cut off his friends. “Honestly, dude, you should get better friends… they don’t sound nice to be around,” one user said. “As a Malaysian who got this sub recommended to me for some reason, I’m so jealous that you guys have such a robust transportation network.”

In other news, a man in his late 30s has turned to social media to confess that his wife became a completely different person after giving birth to their child.

Sharing his story on the r/SingaporeRaw subreddit on Sunday (Sept 14), he claimed that the arrival of their baby had, in his words, brought out “the absolute worst of [his] wife’s personality and character”.

Read more: Man says wife became a completely different person after childbirth, turns to locals for advice