Ansari notes that of those married between 20 in the U.S., one-third met online.Īnsari touts the benefits of online dating, including being able to find “your very specific, very odd dream man” but this in itself is a problem - the endless supply of potential mates that seemingly boosts the likelihood of finding that soulmate, leaving the “good enough marriage” an idea to be scoffed at. Tinder had 12 million matches a day two years after launching while the OkCupid app is downloaded one million times a week. Online dating is no longer a fringe phenomenon. Their long research arm even reached into the pockets of participants, unlocking their smartphones and analyzing text exchanges and swiping habits. In addition to focus groups in Los Angeles and New York, they visited Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Doha and Paris to compare their dating cultures. The pair undertook in-depth interviews, online surveys, and analyzed existing data from dating sites such as OKCupid. He takes a deeper dive than his standup material on the subject, enlisting the help of NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg, while maintaining a light and funny tone throughout the book. So what explains this ubiquitous bad behaviour that all singles complain about while also shamelessly engaging in it? He berates men for being “bozos” and sending boring texts to women but also laments the “unexplained, icy-cold silence” he’s experienced after what he thought was a good date.

“As a medium, it’s safe to say, texting facilitates flakiness and rudeness,” writes Ansari. And he says technology has not only changed the way people meet but the way people act.

He opens Modern Romance by chronicling the evolution of couples meeting on their block to meeting each other because they both swiped the right way on a dating app. Best known for his role as Tom Harverford on Parks and Recreation, his standup material hit such a chord that Ansari, 32, scored a $3.5 million book deal with Penguin to investigate further. The popular comedian has explored the subject during his standup, using personal anecdotes to show why his generation is the most rude, unreliable lot when it comes to dating. So many things seem strange about this today but the personal ad, as Aziz Ansari reminds us in his first book, was just a precursor to the online dating profile. Last week, a friend sent me a photo of an old class assignment she found in her parent’s basement - her grade 10 family studies teacher asked her to write a personal ad from the perspective of herself at 25.

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