“Our romantic options are unprecedented and our tools to sort and communicate with them are staggering. And that raises the question: Why are so many people frustrated?”
I hadn’t planned on reading Modern Romance, I’m married, but CBR had numerous enthusiastic reviews so I decided to find out what all the fuss was about.
I’d be interested to see what Aziz would have to say about my particular romantic path. I met my husband in 8th grade (he gave me a Lifehouse CD for my 13th birthday). Despite him being born in another country, we grew up within 20 blocks of each other. However, it wasn’t until a decade later that we got together in earnest; we had remained friendly throughout high school and continued to run into one another during college at mutual friends’ house parties. So despite meeting the man I plan to spend the rest of my life with before getting my driver’s license I still got to experience the modern dating world with all its sexting and ghosting wonders.
I’m just glad I got out of there before Tinder.
I will say, you can enjoy Modern Romance without being a member of the dating pool. If anything, I think I appreciated it more because I could laugh at most of the situations and thankfully not relate too much to the interviewee’s predicaments.
“In a sense we are all like a Flo Rida song: The more time you spend with us, the more you see how special we are. Social scientists refer to this as the Flo Rida Theory of Acquired Likability Through Repetition.”
If you like sociology there is plenty of science involved in Ansari’s research. He visited Tokyo, Paris and Buenos Aires to see how different countries dated, he held numerous focus groups, formed a subreddit and consulted top social scientists doing similar research. However, if you don’t like Aziz Ansari as a personality you may not be as enthusiastic about Modern romance as I was. It is clearly written in his voice, which I know some people (my husband) find grating.