The women in these interviews continue to explain that in their day, women often married for stability, not love. For woman in this era, it seemed that marriage was the easiest way of acquiring the basic freedoms of adulthood.” “…I asked them straight out whether a lot of women their age got married just to get out of the house. Ansari explores how, in prior generations, women used marriage as a catalyst to gain “freedom.” He interviews various older women in their 70’s and 80’s to illustrate this point:

The less notorious reason for the change in today’s perception of romance is much more fascinating. The dude replied, “She likes the Red Sox.” This illustrates the detrimental effects of having too many options – it allows us to be excruciatingly picky. In one particularly interesting interview, Ansari asks why an average dude turned down a seemingly flawless woman. Perfect.” Ansari discovers this type of thinking through focus groups and interviews with real single people searching for romance. More options and choices initially sound like a good thing, but it inevitably creates the mentality that there is always someone better out there, “Mr. The problem with the growth of technology, Ansari discovers, is that it creates options and choices. Ansari does a great job at describing these changes, from potential romantic partners communicating via smartphones, to the good, bad, and ugly of online dating. One of the more obvious reasons the concept of romance has changed so much in today’s world is because of the rapid growth and evolution of technology. This adds a necessary source of credibility to the project, which contains a multiple of statistics and footnotes that validate all claims that are made. Instead, it is a qualitative research-backed book that explores the norms of modern dating and romance.Īnsari states upfront in the introduction that he solicited help from many professionals, including sociologist Eric Klinenberg, who is the co-author.

I was delightfully surprised to learn that this book, though still funny, is not just a mere catalyst to poke fun at smartphones and online dating. I still wanted to read it because I think Ansari is hilarious however, I did not expect his book to be particularly insightful. When I first heard that Aziz Ansari was releasing a book about romance, I thought it was going to be chapters full of his stand-up sketches bemoaning the methods of dating in today’s world.

Modern romance aziz ansari review