Sexting, Tinder, Snapchat and the ways people hook up now

Standup comic and Parks and Recreation sidekick Aziz Ansari is, at heart, a romantic. He’s also old-fashioned in a lot of ways, even though he wants to figure out how modern dating works. See him frantically wait for a response to a text he sent to a girl he just met in the opening pages of Modern Romance, and you’ll understand how a man brought up to think one way about dating can be flummoxed by all the variations available today.

What has happened? I know she got my text. I know she held my words in her hand!! Why isn’t she responding? Did Tanya’s phone fall into a river/trash compactor/volcano?

Did Tanya fall into a river/trash compactor/volcano?? Oh, no, Tanya has died, and I’m selfishly worried about our date. I’m a bad person.

Rather than just a humor book, the bestselling Modern Romance is a sociological study of sorts. We start out thinking it will be just a bunch of funny anecdotes about dating (which it is), and then — boom! — Ansari throws all kinds of charts and data at us.

Fortunately, the data are interesting and the charts easy to understand. The gist is that finding a partner in modern times is not like it was in your grandfather’s day. Waaay back when, people used to just have arranged marriages, and then later they ended up dating/marrying the closest available human specimens, like a neighbor or third cousin. (Doesn’t sound so romantic when you put it that way.)

Those were the days, of course, before Snapchat, Tinder and sexting, and all the various ways that today’s singles have multiplied their dating pool by infinity.  Now, swiping right is the preferred manner of selecting possible mates, much like buying eyeglasses online or skimming a menu at a French restaurant.

And nowadays, apparently, taking and sending a photo of your junk to a loved one is as commonplace as sending a Hallmark card used to be.

This is all very confusing to people of older generations.

But Ansari’s point is that it’s all very confusing to today’s generation as well.

In fact, the whole notion of a “soul mate,” Ansari’s data suggest, is a modern idea. Before, you just randomly cleaved to someone who might bear your children, or put a roof over your head. No more. Now people wait much longer to get married or serious about settling down with someone. (Sociologists call this period “emerging adulthood,” a kind of latent period of testing the waters before doing the responsible things that adults once took for granted after age 21, like career and marriage and moving out of your parents’ house.) (See: every Judd Apatow movie before This Is 40.)

But not only adulthood is put on hold. Today’s youth don’t want to get married or have kids early either, because, you know, YOLO. They want to get out there and wakeboard, hang-glide, rappel, and hook up with as many sexual partners as possible. The way this is done doesn’t seem romantic, but Ansari concludes that it’s all about the etiquette of hooking up. You should treat people with respect, think of them as human beings existing outside your smartphone contacts or Instagram page. Give them a chance. Because although people nowadays are using more sophisticated tools to choose between an infinite variety of possible mates, they are still basically looking for somebody who seems closest to a soul mate.

That’s very wise counsel from Mr. Ansari, but Modern Romance also charts the rocky roads that come when we mix love and technology. Like texting. We now have a way to reach out to people in a less-threatening way, engaging in flirtatious messaging that helps us see if we want to meet face-to-face. But it’s a double-edged sword. We end up parsing every comma, misspelling and emoji for hidden meaning. We become hooked on the return text. His researchers compare it to betting on a football game or horse race, compared to a slot machine. With games and races, there’s a period of waiting until we find out if the bet pays off. With texting, it’s like we’re surrounded by the ding-dinging of bells every few seconds, prompting us to pump in coins and bet again. We get hooked on the payoff. (This rings true for all e-communications. We get wildly impatient even if an email isn’t responded to right away, whether it’s about romance or not. Things were surely different during the Pony Express days, when suitors probably just got on with their lives during the three months that they had to wait for a written response.)

There are interesting findings here. Ansari chides young men, especially, for being so vague in seeking dates. “Hey” is one of the most frequent text ice-breakers, followed by “Heyy,” trailed close behind by “Wasup?” The very definition of dating has become nebulous, and technology makes it even more subject to interpretation.

Or consider the “jam analogy.” A Columbia professor did an experiment in which a booth was set up at a grocery store to offer customers a variety of jams to taste. When offered six or fewer varieties, the customers bought at least one jar of jam. But — surprise! — when offered over a dozen spoons of jam to taste, they got overwhelmed and didn’t buy any. Message: choice is good; too much choice can paralyze people.

Ansari talks to scores of singles from the dating scene, and most are completely fed up with the rituals of choosing (from among thousands of available potential partners on Tinder or OkCupid), setting up date after date, picking a restaurant, going to a concert, a movie, or coming up with something to do. On top of that, they have to try to determine if the person just might be right for them. It does sound exhausting.

Back in olden times, people were possibly more chill about this pairing-off process. Of course, they often ended up with someone who met only a few of their personal matchability criteria. But most of the time, their selections at least weren’t serial killers.

Then something else happens, Ansari notes. People naturally move past the passionate phase of a relationship within 12 to 18 months. After that, it becomes increasingly about the “companionate relationship”: you value your partner because of shared interests, experiences and intertwined lives. You, essentially, build a life together. It comes down to comfort over variety. Which just may give young people the shudders. And older people a dose of reassurance.