Modern Romance

“Today, if you own a smartphone, you’re carrying a 24-7 singles bar in your pocket.” Online dating, breakup texts, and being monogamish are all discussed by comedian Aziz Ansari in his new book Modern Romance. These are all issues that 30 years ago, no one would one have even known existed. Aziz and a team of people did research on the trials and tribulations of modern dating through focus groups and online surveys on the website Reddit. He begins his book by finding out how people dated and married in years past, and he found through visiting a retirement home (and bribing his subjects with donuts), that most people met, dated, and married people that were in close proximity to their childhood homes. He then went forward in time, talking about the earliest stages of technology changing the dating scene, from newspaper ads, to video dating, to the birth of Match.com, and finally landing on today with Tinder and its competitors today. He also takes his research out of the U.S. and tells the readers a bit about how different cultures date in sometimes vastly different ways the we do here. Overall it’s a hilarious and eye opening book, between Aziz’s commentary, the testimonies of his research subjects, and the dating gurus he interviews, it’s a fun book that focuses on how we rely more and more on technology for all things, and how its changed our way of connecting and dating overall.