Modern Romance

Doughnuts for Interviews: A Visit to a New York Retirement Community

In this section, Ansari and Klinenberg go to a retirement home and offer free donuts to the residents in exchange for interviews. Ansari jokes about a man named Alfredo who eats the donuts without obliging to the interview. Most people who are interviewed met their spouse because they both lived in the same apartment building, neighborhood, or city. John Ellsworth Jr., a sociologist at Yale, confirms this pattern when he says, “People will go as far as they have to to find a mate, but no farther” (16). Ansari notes that while older generations and people from small towns marry close to home, this idea seems absurd to most singles today: “Think about where you grew up as a kid, your apartment building or your neighborhood. Could you imagine marrying one of those clowns?” (16).

Emerging Adulthood: When Grown-Ups Grow Up

Ansari notes that for the people living in the retirement community, “the average age of marriage was around twenty for women and twenty-three for men,” (16) but those numbers are much higher today, with men and women marrying closer to age 30. This drastic change is a result of “emerging adulthood” (17). For older generations, getting married and having children was the rite of passage into adulthood, but younger generations often skip this step and instead go to school, have a career, and date around. Emerging adulthood “offers young people an exciting, fun period of independence from their parents when they get to enjoy the pleasures of adulthood” before settling down (18).

Many of the older women in the retirement home say marriage was a way to get out of the house; for many women back then, they either stayed under the authority of their parents or husband. One woman, Amelia, wishes she had experienced emerging adulthood rather than settling down without those experiences: “This sentiment was widely shared. Everyone, including the women who said they were happily married, said they wanted their daughters and granddaughters to approach marriage differently from how they had” (19).

The Luxury of Happiness: From Companionate to Soul Mate Marriage

Older generations married their spouse because they were “a good guy” or “a nice girl,” (20) but today’s singles are looking for a soul-mate spouse. Sociologist Andrew Cherlin says that people used to be content with a companionate marriage, where “the satisfaction you gained in the marriage depended on how well you fulfilled [your] assigned role” (22); men earned money and women maintained the house. Today, with the reshaping of previously defined gender roles, singles don’t care as much about companionate love as they do about finding true love.

Finding Your Soul Mate

Ansari notes the benefits of the fact that “[t]here are no longer any predetermined life paths. Each of us is on our own” (26): People aren’t expected to get married, which means that people can marry for love instead of convenience. However, there are also downfalls. Ansari and Klinenberg gather “groups from different generations to discuss dating past and present” (27). The older groups say that when they were younger, they had limited options for a mate: They usually met their spouse locally, at a bar, mixer, or from mutual friends. This meant that when they found someone they liked, they committed because they knew they might not have another opportunity. Because younger people today have limitless options, they can feel too paralyzed to commit, thinking that a better choice might be just around the corner.

Phone World

Ansari gives the statistic that “In 2014 the average American spent […] nearly 7.5 hours—in front of a screen, be it a smartphone, tablet, television, or personal computer” (29). This means that a huge portion of a person’s social life exists solely in relation to the screen, and that people have created a phone persona as a result. 

Singles under age 30 use text messaging more often, even for important matters like asking someone out, while singles over age 30 are more likely to make phone calls.

The Rise of the Text Message

Ansari gives a brief overview of the history of the text message, which was invented in 1992 but didn’t catch on publically until around 1999, when text messages could be sent across phone networks (and most predominantly on Blackberries).

Calling Versus Texting

Younger singles are split on this issue. Most young men fear calling a woman on the phone, while some women prefer a phone call to a generic text message. While people have personal preferences, the data shows that “we are generally texting more and calling less” (40). Sherry Turkle, a social psychologist at MIT, says this shift from phone calls to text messaging is due to the “muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining” (41). Ansari’s focus group for parents and their children supported this idea: He split the opposing generations on different sides of the room. The parents started conversations amongst themselves, while the children sat in silence staring at their phones.

The Modern Bozo

After countless interviews with women, Ansari decides that the “firm takeaway […] is that most dudes out there are straight-up bozos” (42). The impersonal nature of texting gives men the confidence to say things they wouldn’t say in person. Even if the text isn’t as vulgar or forward as a sexual suggestion, women are turned off by unintelligent or strange-sounding messages from men.

The Generic “Hey” Text

Ansari notes that most of the texts that women receive are “utterly lacking in thought or personality” (48). He references the website “Straight White Boys Texting” (a website where women share embarrassing, annoying, or cringe-worthy texts that men have sent them), where men have sent women the same “Hey” text multiple days/weeks/months in a row.

The Secretary Problem

Another problem with texting is that singles often text back and forth for a lengthy period of time without ever connecting in person.

The Endless Back-And-Forth

Many young men text women without asking them out, and this annoys the women who wish the men would be courageous enough to make solid plans.

Grammar/Spelling

Even if a man is attractive and charismatic, if he can’t spell in a text it’s unappealing for the women. Ansari also gives an anecdote about a man who was interested in an attractive woman, but she kept spelling “who” like “hoo,” and it “ruined everything” for him (53).

Are We “Hanging Out” or Going on a Date?

Women get annoyed when a man asks them to hang out because it’s not clearly defined as a date, and that changes the expectations and parameters of their meeting.

The Good Texts

While bad texts are a turnoff, a well-crafted message can “build attraction” (54). Ansari defines a good text message as having these three characteristics: “a firm invitation to something specific at a specific time,” “some callback to the last previous in-person interaction,” and “a humorous tone” (54-56).

This is Just the Beginning…

Ansari deduces that texting is a mysterious art form. Even if a text is well written, the person on the receiving end could remain silent for any innumerous reason, and sometimes it’s difficult to understand why two people don’t connect through texting.

After the Ask…

Even if the initial text is successful, the responding text is a game. Most people admit to not responding to a good first text right away because they don’t want to seem too eager.

The Science of Waiting

Most people wait to respond to an initial text, and “[s]everal people subscribed to the notion of doubling the response time” (58). While it seems like a silly game, Ansari wonders if there is some truth there when he quotes Xenophon, Greek historian, as saying that Socrates once told a prostitute that it’s better to make someone crave something rather “than when they are offered before they are desired” (59).

The Power of Waiting

Ansari references a study revolving around “reward uncertainty” (59), which is where lab animals don’t know if they’ll get a reward when they push a lever. The not knowing “dramatically increase[s] their interest in getting a reward, while also enhancing their dopamine levels so that they basically feel coked up” (59). He likens this to the idea that getting a text is like a “reward” (59), and if a person responds too quickly, it lessens the interest in the potential mate. On the other end, once a person sends a text, if they don’t receive a response quickly enough it can cause them to panic. Ansari also notes the “scarcity principle,” which is when “we see something as more desirable when it is less available” (64).

What We Do When We are Interested

In today’s dating scene, “more than 80 percent of millennials admitted to doing online research on their partner before a first date” (64). On the one hand, this is beneficial when people find out if their potential date is a good or bad person; on the other hand, initial assumptions from online information can be “difficult to block out” (65).

What We Do When We Aren’t Interested

During his standup comedy shows, Ansari would ask audiences how they showed a potential date that they weren’t interested. Of 150,000 people, “[o]verwhelmingly, most people practice the ‘pretend to be busy’ and ‘silence’ methods” (66). However, those same people said that they prefer when people are honest with them rather than giving them an excuse. This means that most people want one thing but do another thing entirely.

What Happened With Tanya, Though?

Ansari revisits the anecdote he gave in the Introduction, where he stressed over Tanya’s lack of response to his concert invitation via text. While he thought it was something he said that caused her silence, “she was questioning her entire sexual identity and was trying to figure out if she was a lesbian” (68).