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A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from one of this generation’s most popular and sharpest comedic voicesAt some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?Some of our problems are unique to our time. “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?” But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate.For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before.In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world.
Let me start off by saying I am a big fan of Aziz Ansari's comedy and comedic style, a huge fan of social science, and a young person who has lived on computers and the internet for most of my life. I am old enough to remember Myspace, but my parents never let me have one, and I remember dial up but never used it for anything other than Neopets and addictinggames.com.I'm not sure why Amazon is requiring a tag for how I would describe the plot of this book. Since it's nonfiction I wouldn't really describe its content as a "plot,"so there aren't twists or surprises, but I would say you will probably be surprised by some of the information in this book. The discussion of online dating was particularly interesting and eye opening, while the pictures of text message conversations stood out to me and had me laughing out loud at how relatable they were. I couldn't tell you which part of the book was my favorite - I love it all. I flagged and underlined this book like it was an academic reading. If you want to sort of test whether or not you will like this book before endeavoring to read it, I recommend you watch the "Hot Ticket" episode of Ansari's Netflix sitcom "Master of None." Much of the thematic discussion in that episode is reminiscent of "Modern Romance" acted out by a fictional Ansari and written in a comparable but more comedic and fictionalized style. This book represents my favorite type of comedy, that which derives its humor from real-life experience but also sprinkles in some quantitative and qualitative analysis of the phenomenon being joked about. The result is a brilliant back-and-forth between ridiculous Ansari-stand-up-style jokes (which really did have me laughing out loud while reading), insightful social and romantic commentary, and more informational content graphs, models, charts, and case studies.I found this book to be an approachably written and easily comprehensible summary and discussion of modern romance from a few points ofreference, discussing trends and factors in dating now vs. then, different types of love, and different cultural approaches to dating. I read this book a few months ago and, unlike many books that I have read before and since then, I find myself thinking about it, self-referencing it (I think of something and I remember that I read it in this book), recommending it and referencing it to other people more than any book or books I've read other than the Harry Potter series from the years 2000-2012 and Allen Carr's "Easy Way to Quit Smoking" (which worked). If you're frustrated by the flakiness of modern romance, read this book. If you have tried and hated (or loved) online dating, read this book. If you like pasta and Aziz Ansari, read this book. If you are still reading this review, read this book. Do it.
