Aziz Ansari

Full disclosure: I read this book back in September, right before an unexpected and emergency hospitalization. I also read it in a 24-hour period, which not only means that I found it immensely readable, I'm also struggling now (two months later) to remember the final details. (That's as much the fault of the hospitalization, and everything that happened during it, as it is the quick read-time.) I picked up this book as a result of reading the article-length excerpt published in TIME, which show more was basically an abridgment of Ansari's introduction. I like Ansari's stand-up reasonably well, and I've enjoyed hearing him spout off before about the culture we've created where it's "okay" to tap-dance around making plans in hopes that something better comes along. This includes never responding to texts, canceling at the last minute, and my personal favorite, the dreaded "maybe," a word I've come to find both lazy and deeply, deeply cowardly.

...And my experience is largely just with friends. Apply all of this to dating and the problem magnifies by about a hundred.

What I really enjoyed about Ansari's book is he takes the topic very, very seriously. He actually goes out and polls people, looks up the statistics, and examines the dating habits of the modern man and woman. (By his own admission, there is very little page-space given over to LGBT relationships, which is unfortunate but reasonable. Not only would it make for a far longer book, the historical data Ansari often employs for comparison simply doesn't exist; outside of certain urban environments in the USA, LGBT relationships have until very recently often been conducted in secret, and LGBT dating "trends" have only socially streamlined with the advent of the internet.) He examines texting, dating websites and even arranged marriages to find out what "works" and why. My favorite part of the book even had him comparing the dating cultures found in Buenos Aires, Paris and Tokyo, with some eye-opening results.

Occasionally, the book gets a little too glib; sometimes, Ansari falls into his Parks and Recreation Tommy Haverford persona of "Look at me, I'm being funny!", and it can be distracting, especially at the very beginning of the book. Overall, though, I was impressed with what I read. Ansari has taken the time to dissect something which has been, is or will be relevant to very nearly everyone. Is "romance" dead? Well, no. But what it means to be single, married, or dating is changing, and if we're lucky, we'll learn how to relate and build relationships across an ever-increasing social divide. That, or we'll just say "maybe," and go back to playing Call of Duty. show less

I hadn't read anything about this book before I picked it up, so foolishly thought it would be a comedy book, maybe some funny essays or an autobiography about Aziz's love life. Instead, as the introduction laid out for me, Aziz actually teamed up with a sociologist to do legit social science experiments in order to explore modern romance. This immediately made me like Aziz even more, because people were like, you should write a funny book! And he was like, yeah, let's set up some focus show more groups and gather data!

Not to say this book isn't funny, because it is; it's a sociological look at dating in the modern age filtered through Aziz's voice. So it's funny, and it's enlightening. Everyone knows that dating is different now; the internet exists, women have more choices when it comes to careers and reproduction, economic and social changes mean that young adults are in school longer, living at home longer, etc. This book lays out some of those differences and what they mean for people of dating age nowadays (basically focusing on people 22-30ish, in New York, and in straight relationships). He also looks a bit at what dating looks like internationally, in Paris, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires. It's pretty fascinating. There's a lot of stuff left out, but a scope of "dating culture" in general is much too broad.

I did find interesting the fact that most people, if the person they're dating isn't really into them, would prefer that person be honest and just say sorry, not interested. But those same people, when they're not interested in someone, mostly use the "I'm really busy right now" or just ignoring them methods. So we all want people to be honest, but we are never honest. It's hinted at later that we may not actually want people to be honest. It's really telling that we tend to do the opposite of what we say we'd want in the same situation.

Also, the book itself was pretty slick. I like the cover, the pages were nice and thick, and I liked the simple blue and black text colour scheme. show less

Aziz Ansari teams up with sociologist Eric Klinenberg to explore love and marriage - what makes our "modern romance" in the age of texting and online dating different from generations before?

I mostly enjoyed reading this book. The humor sometimes fell a little flat, and I would've preferred a less comedic version of the same statistics. And I ultimately came away with a different take than Ansari did about his own findings: he concludes (and I'm not really giving anything away, I could see show more this throughout earlier chapters) that while maybe relationships have become more difficult now because we are looking for soulmates, we ultimately have a better chance of having the excitement of passionate love, and it's worth it. My take? I saw a parallel (that he doesn't draw in the text) between what he terms the "good enough" long-lasting marriages of yesteryear with the companionate (long-term, like family) love that grows even as passionate (excitement and like a drug of a new relationship) love wanes in a long-term relationship. While I have experienced the benefits of emerging adulthood (that time between moving out of your parents' house and settling down), and cultural acceptance of not marrying, and wouldn't say technology is all bad, either, I think that one of the downsides of having more potential dating options than "the girl next door" has made us less likely to be content in general. So, I ended up reading against his narrative a lot of the time even while I was taking in the information. Interesting, but not life-changing stuff. show less

from Laura:

Comedian Aziz Ansari and sociologist Eric Klinenberg explore the history of dating and courtship rituals in Modern Romance. Topics covered include online dating, marriage, texting, sexting, cheating, snooping, soul mates, monogamous vs. monogamish, and more. The pair conducted research all over the world and it was fun to hear about the different ways that other cultures define and pursue relationships.

Ansari's delivery is much like his stand-up: timely and topical, rapid-fire and show more a little abrasive, but not *too* crass, and of course, very funny. As a listener (rather than a reader), I was treated to some audiobook asides that made me laugh pretty hard. He performed some quotes from his focus groups with funny accents, something like: "I don't remember what she actually sounded like. I just imagined that she had a southern accent because she said 'tizzy.'" Also, "I've always wanted to use the word 'whopping' to describe a statistic, and I think we can all agree, that statistic? Is whopping."

"Firm takeaway from all our interviews with women is that most dudes out there are straight-up bozos." I enjoyed the subsequent liberal use of the word "bozo" throughout the book. Also, "bing-bong."

From the introduction:"This is the audiobook of my book, Modern Romance, and I'm gonna read it to you. God, you're so lazy! You don't have time to read it yourself, you want me to read it to you? Alright. Um, this should be fun! [pause] I wonder what you're doing right now. Are you like, curled up in bed with some tea by a fire...have you thrown this MP3 on? Ooooh...that sounds nice. Alright. Are you getting irritated that I haven't started the book yet? What if I spent another five minutes talking about how lazy you are for not actually reading the physical book? No, I'm not. Here we go."

I think this book is better enjoyed via audio than print, if you don't mind being occasionally berated by Aziz for listening to it rather than reading it. show less