Digital Love

The past few decades have seen remarkable changes people's romantic lives. Even in Bangladesh, where families fixing matches was the social norm for decades, young people have very different opinions about how they wish to go about things. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, comedian and Parks and Recreation actor, is a book that catalogues how dating and romance have changed in this age of smart phones and limitless communication. 

For the book, Ansari teamed up with sociologist Eric Klinenberg of New York University and surveyed over three thousand young people from various countries. Now you can ask why a random comedian is the mind behind this book and to answer that Ansari recalls a romantic experience of his own. He and a woman, who Ansari calles Tanya in the book, had met at a party and hit it off. He was genuinely confident that this could go somewhere before Tanya suddenly disappeared. Aziz spent hours staring at his phone, waiting for a reply to his text. This got him thinking about the uniquely modern act of waiting anxiously while staring at a blank screen. And from that experience, came the quest to write this book. 

Modern Romance is roughly split into three parts, where the first details dating trends of the days gone by while the second and the third talk about the trends of today and tomorrow, respectively. It should be noted that the book doesn't entirely read like a sociology book although there's a fair bit of research going on. It's mostly an informal look into how the trend grew. But that doesn't take away from the fact that you get a very clear idea of the evolution of dating over the past century or so. 

While the study is distinctly American, the way the trends have changed is actually pretty reminiscent of how things changed over here too. Back in the early parts of last century, Americans meet their spouses in church groups or almost always in the nearby neighbourhoods, with the meeting often catalyzed by elders. Ring a bell? Yes, that's a roughly western version of our 'arranged marriages'. 

Then we jump into the ages of computer screens and dating sites. Remember the confusion you felt about how quickly you should reply to a text, lest you seem desperate? Or the time you weren't sure you if you should ask your crush for 'a date' or to just 'hang out'? These are modern day problems, of the sort that earlier generations never faced. Your grandfather wrote to your grandmother immediately and then waited for weeks for the letter to arrive. He did not receive her letter and wait to open the envelope so the 'SEEN' didn't pop up on your grandmother's letter and make it look he's needy. Yes, we live in a unique time and Ansari captures all of it. 

Ansari's narrative is enjoyable and his jokes don't tend to get carried away like some comedians do when writing books. Some may argue the shift between jokes and analytical data leaves a big question mark over the book's actual identity but this was never meant to an overly serious study. So if you want a brief and informal look into the evolution of modern dating, this is a good option.

Rayaan Ibtesham Chowdhury is a 19 year-old with pent-up years of teenage angst who loves to complain about most things while listening to blues guitar tracks. Ask him to stop writing at rayaansmail@gmail.com