Modern Romance
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4.5 • 792 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times Bestseller
“An engaging look at the often head-scratching, frequently infuriating mating behaviors that shape our love lives.” —Refinery 29
A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from Aziz Ansari, the star of Master of None and one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices
At 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 Andrew Cherlin, 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Actor-comedian Aziz Ansari isn’t necessarily the man you’d turn to for a deep-dive, quantitative analysis of current dating trends, but he is the guy you’d hit up for funny, slightly off-kilter commentary on the weird ways we go about finding love. Surprise—it turns out he can be insightful and hilarious in equal measure. Modern Romance is a smart, charming survey of modern dating that relies equally on soundly vetted academic studies and a few, shall we say, less scientific investigations. It’s a book everyone can fall in love with.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by his own romantic woes, comedian Ansari teamed up with sociologist Klinenberg in 2013 to design and conduct a research project to better understand the dating game as it's played today. This books collects the insights gleaned from a variety of research methods: focus groups in major cities around the world, crowdsourcing on the website Reddit. Ansari addresses the effects of technology on modern relationships with an amusing historical overview, beginning with the classified ads of the 1980s and '90s and video dating services before chronicling the rise of industry giants such as Match.com and Tinder. He also dives into the sociological theory at play, discussing "the paradox of choice," the differences between "companionate" and "soul mate" marriages, and a generational conversation spurred by a visit to a retirement community. The book is steeped in pop culture, featuring examples from the popular Tumblr "Straight White Boys Texting," sex columnist Dan Savage's thoughts on open relationships, and Ansari's personal dating maxim, hilariously dubbed "the Flo Rida Theory of Acquired Likability Through Repetition." Despite Ansari's insistence otherwise, most of this material has been covered exhaustively elsewhere, but Ansari's oddball sense of humor does bring something new and refreshing to the conversation.
Customer Reviews
A Modern (APP)lication to Dating
This was a great book! I thought Modern Romance was super interesting, and I enjoyed the deep dive into the social aspects of current dating, backed by science. Anzi presented the statistics and facts of modern dating with comedic appeal, which made the book easy to read. Loved it. I especially enjoyed it as a young women navigating through online and App dating.
Ok
To be honest, I had a very high expectations, hoping that I could learn a lot from this book. However, at the end of the day seems like the lesson Aziz was trying to teach me was pretty obvious. They're pretty obvious.
Jokes are kind of bad embarrassing.
Great Book
Some interesting research, really a good reference point to adapt to a new world.