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Introduction
We all hit the road searching for a life partner or soulmate at some point. It’s quite the norm these days to hop in and out of relationships as we meet new people and try dating in a quest to find love. Was romance always like this a few decades ago? Present-day singles have more options for romance than ever before. Thanks to modern technology, we have an astounding ability to connect with thousands of potential partners. Unfortunately, so many people remain dissatisfied. Why is it so? Are we too spoiled for choices to make the right choice?
Aziz Ansari collaborated with Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University, to investigate dating trends. They created Reddit message boards and interviewed many people about their dating experiences. This data is combined with expert insights, graphical data, and humor in the book to demonstrate how dating works. Aziz begins the book by telling how he met and asked Tanya out but never heard back from her. He realized this was common among his generation, so he began to wonder why younger generations had more difficulty finding love than older generations.
The transformation of romance goes beyond technological advancements. Within a short time, the process of finding a suitable partner has changed dramatically. The older generation found love next door, sometimes, or within the neighborhood. Families met and consented to marriage after determining that neither party looked like a criminal. At the age of twenty-four, couples would be married and have children. Today marriage is no longer a priority. People marry much later while spending many years searching for the perfect person, a soul mate.
Aziz Ansari’s Perspective
Aziz Ansari is a stand-up comedian best known for his role on the late, great television show “Parks and Recreation” as Tom Haverford. In 2010, he also hosted the MTV Movie Awards and his own Netflix show, Master of None. Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance for years. He was inspired to write the book Modern Romance after bringing up the Tanya fiasco in a comedy routine and reflecting on the universality of his experience. However, he chose to take things to the next level with his first book.
Collaborating with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg on a massive research project, Aziz Ansari has unearthed modern romance’s dynamics. The intense research on the topic included hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted in cities ranging from Buenos Aires to Tokyo to Wichita.
They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and set up their online research forum on Reddit, which attracted thousands of messages. They interviewed experts, consulted books on human behavior, psychology, and sociology, and uncovered sober academic studies about current dating trends. They enlisted the help of world-renowned social scientists such as Eli Finkel, Andrew Cherlin, Helen Fisher, Barry Schwartz, Sheena Iyengar, Robb Willer, and Sherry Turkle. The result is unlike any other social science or humor book we’ve seen.
About Eric Klinenberg
Eric Klinenberg is a professor of sociology at NYU. He’s the author of Going Solo (Penguin Press) and has contributed to The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and This American Life.
StoryShot #1: The Search For A Soul Mate Is Taking Longer Than Ever Before
Ansari and Klinenberg pay a visit to a nursing home and trade donuts for conversations with the community members. They discovered that most of them met their wives and husbands because they lived in the same neighborhood or city. “People will only go as far as they have to to find a mate.” While older people and individuals from small towns could marry closer to home, Ansari acknowledges this idea would seem outrageous today: “Remember where you grew up when you were a child, would you marry any of those clowns?”
People often got married and had children when they were young. Most people these days postpone marriage to concentrate on their careers and education. This is because they can enjoy adulthood’s perks without settling down. Many people today are more experimental with love; they try to turn the cards in their favor, go on exciting dates, and do things that help them feel what it’s like to be with a person. When they fail to get the spark they are looking for, they move on to the next in search of the perfect connection.
StoryShot #2: Initiating a Relationship Is More Complex Than Ever
Anyone who owns a mobile phone and is in a romantic relationship knows how fast and ruthlessly the handset can work against you. It’s an innocent medium of communication one moment and a poisonous breeding ground for self-doubt and self-loathing the next. You think you’re a rational adult, but suddenly you’re getting worked up over how to reply to a 2 a.m. message from a crush whose only feedback after three days of no contact reads, in full, “wsup.”
Aziz Ansari feels your pain. He understands how unappealing it is to stare impotently at a screen, waiting for a text that never arrives, and how impolite it is to apply the passion and commitment of a French deconstructionist to the evaluation of an illiterate thread of grammatically incorrect words. “Modern Romance,” his latest book, references a His would-be girlfriend’s failure to respond to his witty text that sent him helplessly going into a “tornado of panic, hurt, and anger.” The hours flew by. He exclaims, “I’m so stupid!” “I should have typed ‘Hey’ with two y’s rather than one!” “Did Tanya’s phone end up in a river/trash compactor/volcano?” Tanya died.” (No, Tanya simply does not wish to respond.)
StoryShot #3: The World Of Online Dating
Aziz Ansari explores the advantages and disadvantages of modern romance, specifically online dating. He maintains objectivity by focusing on research and data instead of arguing a compelling argument for or against it. He claims that while dating is always shaped by the period it occurs, it still adjusts to current dynamics.
Those findings are not surprising, but strangely, men perform much better when they aren’t smiling. Whereas women performed worse when they did not make eye contact, men performed much better when they looked away. This appears to be highly illogical. “What exactly are they looking at?”
Strangely, the most effective profile photos for men are those with animals, followed by photos showing off muscles and photos of them doing exciting stuff.” Outdoor, drinking, and travel photos were the least effective.
A fascinating aspect was when Rudder examined the data on which photos resulted in the best experiences. So, although “cleavage” shots of women resulted in about 50 percent extra new contacts than the monthly average, the photos that elicited the most communication showed a person doing exciting stuff. Faces were not always required. These images indicated something more profound about their lives, leading to more meaningful interactions.
StoryShot #4: Are There Too Many Options To Make The Right Choice?
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari examines how technology has changed the dating process. Since there were fewer options, individuals used to find their partner in their neighborhood. Singles today are delaying marriage for way too long. They now have more options due to technological advancements, but society views marriage differently with so many single parents nowadays.
The problem with the Internet is that it helped to create the notion that there is the best option available and that if we look carefully, we can find it. As a result, there is a slew of inferior options that we would be a stupid pick. Under one of their Reddit threads, Aziz and his team asked people to explain their ideal first dates. It was incredible to see how many participated in simple and accessible things that required much more thought than a movie or dinner. More exciting dates constitute more incredible romantic achievements.
Quotes
― Aziz Ansari #modernromance
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― Aziz Ansari #modernromance
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“too many people spend way too much time doing the online part of online dating, not the dating part.”
― Aziz Ansari #modernromance
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― Aziz Ansari #modernromance
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“Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide: Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it’s a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that. Ideally, though, we’re lucky, and we find our soul mate and enjoy that life-changing mother lode of happiness. But a soul mate is a very hard thing to find.”
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