Modern Romance in Pop Sugar's Annual Ultimate Reading Challenge

Nov 29, 2015 Teresa rated it liked it

Shelves: 2016

Aziz Ansari wants to understand the mores and meaning of dating in the modern world (mostly through social media and dating apps), and he attempts to do that by pairing with a sociologist mate, and comparing and contrasting the present with the past, the impact of technology in human interaction, and the landscape for romantic relationships in US, Japan, Buenos Aires and France. He explains his choice of international sampling points because apparently the dating habits and general attitudes to Aziz Ansari wants to understand the mores and meaning of dating in the modern world (mostly through social media and dating apps), and he attempts to do that by pairing with a sociologist mate, and comparing and contrasting the present with the past, the impact of technology in human interaction, and the landscape for romantic relationships in US, Japan, Buenos Aires and France. He explains his choice of international sampling points because apparently the dating habits and general attitudes to many aspects of romantic relationships, such as intimacy, commitment, infidelity, the post-millennial etiquette (or lack thereof) for dumping your partner etc, can be very different in these countries.

The book is witty (at times), and mildly amusing for the most part (except when describing some bizarre dating-avoiding behaviours in Japan, which is when I laughed out loud a couple of times), it has an interesting premise, and it could be said that the guy did some homework research on the topic by consulting experts and conducting surveys and focus groups. I feel I learned some stats I was not aware of, and the book was just worth it for the chapter on Japan alone.

I can't completely recall what other link, newspaper piece, blog recommendation or passing commentary led me to buy this book and download it into my kindle, as I have been -more or less- happily paired for 2.5 decades, perhaps just that I am generally curious about almost everything under the sun, and this is a fascinating topic.
It might have been my sister's complaining of and often puzzlement with Internet dating, or even the constant whining from friends or patients. But what actually led me to decide to open this one now, and not any other among thousands available, was the Goodreads feed. I noticed that a GR friend had started reading it, realised I also had it instantly available as already bought in my kindle, and there and then I wanted to jump into this issue too. Straight away. The "right time" to rescue it from Kindle oblivion was just now.

Starting with it in such a way has also made me reflect about some of the surface similarities of the early stages of Internet dating, when the other person is a total stranger with whom you solely communicate digitally, with "virtual friendships", which is something I have only encountered recently, and mostly via Goodreads, as I do not wish to have a Facebook account. I often wonder whether there are any implicit rules of engagement I must be violating, unwittingly, all the time due to my ignorance. I suppose the stakes are not that high, but still, it may be rather confusing. And this has also brought about some more contemplation of aspects of self-presentation from social psychology that I have always found very interesting too.

Reading the book has also brought back to my mind the use and principles of the qualitative research method Conversation Analysis, because since a lot of the communication is written, and therefore it is possible to keep a permanent and totally accurate record of conversations, verbatim, ultimately it is possible, in theory, to be tempted to analyse the messages to death. People get stuck and obsessed. I know for sure this happens. It is actually not that unusual to have patients getting out their smartphones in the middle of a therapy session, wanting to involve me into interpreting with them the messages other people send them. I always find this incredibly awkward, and when politely declining to enter those games with them I often worry if I am being rude or unhelpful or whether saying "no" might damage the therapeutic relationship. I find that social media nowadays, besides the usefulness and appeal it may have, is also at the very centre of a lot of people's stress and distress.

Paradoxically at the same time, the comparisons that Aziz Ansari makes between the past and the digital present, when a lot of people also may have more meaningful and fulfilling relationships with their smartphones than their partners (I will admit, unashamedly, this is true for me too from time to time), provided a lot of food for thought. I am not surprised to hear either that a lot of people might yearn with great nostalgia for the much more simple, uncomplicated scenario of yesteryear, even with the trade-off of less choice.

The section with Barry Schwartz about the paradox of choice was quite familiar and enjoyable, as I follow his podcasts, and also the work of the behavioual anthropologist Helen Fisher was interesting to revisit, as I've followed her work for some time and I have just watched a documentary about her fascinating research and social experiments.

But there were some aspects of the book that were not that convincing. Ansari is, of course, no social scientist, he is a comedian, so I should not begrudge the lack of rigour at times, as his intention is not to be rigorous, but to present a modern day conundrum in a humorous way.

But in any case I missed, for example, a reference to Robert Sternberg, one of the pioneering researchers on love, when discussing the differences between passionate love vs. companionate love, and to the phenomenon of polyamory when he was talking about open marriages. Also, it came across almost as an afterthought, but top points for remembering to quote the propinquity effect.

I found many of the jokes unfunny (although to be fair, there were a few which were quite good too). He could definitely have had a field day with the jokes if he would have thought to mention objectophilia in the context of dating becoming harder in the face of greater choice. And I found that it did grate a little bit that he was using his own experiences a bit too much to illustrate points, to the point that it felt at times more an autobiography (first whinny, then smug), than anything else.

All in all, it was interesting enough to be worth the cover price, but not ground breaking, and by 85%, when he was getting to the "conclusion", I was definitely losing interest, as he recaps the whole book. By then I was very close to DNF.

Is it really necessary to add a "conclusion" to this book? I don't think so. It is not an academic paper. I found the author funny-ish up to there, but then he just veered into insufferable smugness for finding a girlfriend. At age 31. Good on you!
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Apr 26, 2017 Dylan rated it it was amazing

every on should read this book??? it's so good??? educational AND funny??? and does a great job at analyzing the dating scene in the 21st century ...more

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