Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari & Eric Klinenberg
Published: June 16th 2015 by Penguin Press
Genre: Nonfiction, humor
Pages: 279

 

“Today, if you won a smartphone, you’re carrying a 24-7 singles bar in your pocket.”

Aziz Ansari has teamed up with Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University and done research on romance in this modern digital age we live in.

I got the audiobook and thought it was one of those comedian biography books, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. But still I wasn’t disappointed, I think Ansari is funny and I enjoyed his delivery and the content.

Ansari and Klinenberg has done their research and held focus groups all over the world. The book is full of good data, graphs, charts and statistics that’s humoristically presented by Ansari through stories and scenarios. Some hilarious, some cringe worthy and a few I cannot believe that I can relate to.

The focus groups included both the current dating generation and their parents. Needless to say, times have changed between the two and the comparisons can be hilarious at times, even if it isn’t groundbreaking observations, it’s still entertaining.

I’ve dipped a toe or two in the online dating pool, and I can’t help but laugh out loud at the stories about online dating and all the assumptions and awkward tension between the lines of that form of communication.

“For me the takeaway of these stories is that, no matter how many options we seem to have on our screens, we should be careful not to lose track of the human beings behind them. We’re better off spending quality time getting to know actual people than spending hours with our devices, seeing who else is out there.”

Ansari uses his own life as examples at times, and breaks down some realness when he starts talking about being paralyzed by choices. It’s all very relatable. If you’re in that age group that is. The rest probably won’t find this interesting. I loved every second of it though.

It should probably be noted that I am single and probably the target demographic of this book.