Modern Romance
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.
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Community Reviews
While most of the science in this book I've known about, it was nice to see the data that Ansari and his colleagues collected from the phones of people from different countries around the world. While I don't think it's a very funny book, (he does try though, and I admire that he's so caught up in the data and the science that he leaves the humor to small snippets) I really enjoyed reading it. I think it's wonderful that someone who is not a scientist and is in the public eye came up with a great idea and instead of just running with it and making a mess, he acknowledged his limits and went to professionals for help. I hope that more people will be interested in science and social sciences thanks to this book and I am very happy that someone as well known as Ansari is encouraging people to see the value of well conducted research.
I like how this book contains research in a way I didn't expect. Aziz put a lot of thought and time into creating the perfect balance of anecdotal evidence from his personal life and from focus groups in person or on reddit with research from psychologists and neuroscientists. It was fascinating and such an enjoyable read. Aziz's voice and comedy came through at the perfect moments. His book really gave me a lot to think about in my personal love life and in those I've seen around me.