Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari - BOOK REVIEW

Rating: 4/5

An interesting read. Besides a few jokes that were ill-placed or simply not funny, there is a good deal of intelligence in this book about how relationships work in the world of modern technology.

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not involved in this new world of dating, it's so complicated:

People play text messages games with each other like never before. 

It appears all this choice is driving people crazy: we keep looking for something better - the next Tinder swipe might just be "the one".

​Oh and it looks like online daters are spending waaayy to much time doing the online bit and too little time doing the dating bit. Recommendations are that you meet your online potentials within under 10 messages, 6 according to Ansari. The whole point of online dating is to actually take the relationship offline and decide whether or not you have the necessary chemistry to make a relationship or friendship work.

Aziz Ansari looked at the dating situation in a few countries, Japan was the most fascinating for me: The Japanese economy is facing a relationship crisis - not only are people not dating, huge swathes of Japanese people just aren't having sex anymore. Being a very patriarchal society men were used to having a certain position in the work and home; however, now that women are financially independent and not happy to just quit their jobs upon finding a husband, men don't know where they belong in the value chain anymore. 

Men are too scared to ask women out although women want to be asked out. Women are willing to ask men out but no man wants to date a woman that would ask, it's not seen as proper. Online dating is seen as so awkward that people don't even feel confident enough to use their own picture as their profile image; online daters normally use a random image such as their cat.

The population of 127million is expected to fall to c.83 million by 2100. The Government is so worried that they're sponsoring dating programs and subsidising child-bearing with tax bonuses. The Japanese are at risk of going extinct.

On the other side of the spectrum is Buenos Aires in Argentina where the men are so gang-ho they don't take no for an answer. Being harassed is the norm and bosses hiring motels out to have relations with their secretaries is seen as normal - talk about abuse of power.

I'm all for finding yourself and exploring your options but for me websites like Ashley Madison are a sign of moral degradation. Yes, human beings aren't innately monogamous but if you commit to a marriage then you stick to the vows, you don't do things to hurt the person you claim to love.

Definitely an interesting read, get it on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.

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