Modern Romance

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari      Audio Book:6 hours   Hardback Book: 288 pages   

An insightful and often hilarious take on modern romance.   He cites examples from the past - when folks tended to court and marry whoever was close by ie. on the next farm, in town etc.   Not a lot of action required just the desire to be married and whoever looks study enough to survive the winter and work the land wins.   He goes through dating and romance through the 40s, hot dang!  Back from the war, wow!  Women smoke cigarettes in public now?  Oh well, we've both got nicotine on our breath and yellowing finger tips let's get hitched.   Through the 50s-60s only bad girls put out - good girls go home bad girls go everywhere - you're kind of cute - o.k. let's get married.  Through the free-love late 60s-70s-let's live together - we're cool to the 80s - it's all about me and my big hair - if you can support the lifestyle I want to live buy the ring and I will be there.   Then the 90s hmmm what is this internet stuff?  I'm too cerebral for marriage lets just do whoever we want and come together as our schedules allow to the 2000s millenials - Social media booty calls - suddenly I have 3,000 I seldom see but text constantly I can pick and choose my relationships and have many simultaneously if I decide to.   Why be exclusive when the world is literally at our fingertips and so is porn - we don't even have to go out of our rooms sex is on the computer screen.  To current day - not a lot of romance these days - everyone is constantly communicating but relationships are more written about via text and cell phone hookups Aziz feels people have lost the deeper exploration of each other that used to go on in gettng to know someone now a potential companion is gained or lost simply by googling them and seeing what is said in cyberspace about this person and with all the ways one can gain access to public records that person you just hooked up with at the gym or Starbucks seems to have a number of arrests for driving under the influence resulting in road rage and assault charges - PASS.   While he sees the benefits of today's cyber dating/investigating  he also thinks we lose something infinitely better in spending quality time with others to slowly get to build relationships and trust then fallling in love because we have invested emotional time with this other person - now, you can basically check out even hone in via satelitte on a person's home, find out their income,  see their financial profile check their background, work history even credit history, schooling, interests and never leave the computer device of choice we happen to be using.   information is a boon and a detrimental device all at the same time.   What if something gets posted that is incorrect but it sounds really bad.   What if there are extinuating circumstances that aren't necessarily explained - just cold facts posted and the person being researched is actually a victime of unresolved identity theft and the perpetrator is reeking havoc all over town in the would be partner's name which they would explain to you if you didn't unfriend them and stop communicating with them.   He relates all this in comedic ways citing one example of a gal who fell head over heels for a guy only to google him and find out he and his mother were arrested for both beating up an elderly lady in their neighborhood who was feeding stray cats.   (I would have been really peeved to say the least over that one.)    A fun read and it will make you stop and think that yeah the more we have access to the higher the walls and the farther the space comes between us.    Well done, Aziz.