Aziz Ansari Writes a Book About Love and Online Dating

Posted on June 5, 2015

Parks and Recreation star and comedian Aziz Ansari has been thinking a lot about romance. He has written a book with sociologist Eric Klinenberg about the state of dating and love in the Internet Age called Modern Romance.

Ansari notes that his parents had an arranged marriage, and are still happy decades later. But these days everyone is marrying later in life, or not marrying at all. And those in their 20s and 30s are used to doing exhaustive research on the Internet before they even go out to dinner or buy candles for the apartment. So how can they sort through all the overwhelming online options for finding romance?

In an excerpt from the book at Time magazine, Ansari explains, "Besides gasoline, it's nearly impossible for me to think of anything I won’t put in time for to find the best. I'm a maximizer for just about everything. Tacos? You better believe. Candles? If you only knew how good the candles in my house smell." But according to the research he and his co-author did, the qualities that people are looking for in a romance are not reflected in what they put on their online dating profiles.

The book examines how dating and finding spouses has changed over time, and notes that in the end having a friend set you up probably works better than Tinder. In this trailer for the book, Aziz spoofs the classic 80s dating videos. Take a look: