Book of the Week: Modern Romance

17 Oct 2015

This week I read Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, the comedian, with Eric Klinenberg, the sociologist. In the past people married people who were local to them through arranged marriages. Times have changed with the smartphone age, which leaves current singles puzzled trying to figure out what the heck is going on. People are left to navigate two worlds: the real world and the phone world.

Finding someone today is probably more complicated and stressful than it was for previous generations—but you’re also more likely to end up with someone you are really excited about.

The book goes through the initial ask, online dating, the paradox of choice, international differences, and other relationship issues. Compassionate Marriage Versus Finding Your Soulmate Marriage used to be an economic arrangement where a woman could get away from her parents. This has changed for marrying for happiness. This explains why people are getting married later in life instead of as soon as possible. Marriage used to be the gateway to adulthood, but now people experience an emerging adulthood after college. Instead of settling with someone who is good enough, we are looking for out soulmates. Passionate Love and Compassionate Love

If you take a narrative view, there are different things to accomplish at different stages of life. Dating and having these passionate flings are perfect when you’re younger, but some of the greatest joys of life come from nurturing and from what’s called “generativity.” People have strong strivings to build something, to do something, to leave something behind. And of course having children is one way of doing that. My own experience having children was that I discovered there were rooms in my heart that I didn’t even know where there. and if I had committed to a life of repeated sexual flings, I never would have opened those doors. - Jonathan Haidt

Passionate love is hot and fast, but quickly fades. Compassionate love is a love that grows stronger over time. A relationship goes through two phases. It starts with passionate love and ends with compassionate love. When passionate love fades, people think something is wrong with the relationship and end the relationship before compassionate love has time to grow. Purchase Modern Romance on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.