Modern Romance

Ansari admits he’s never been a “relationship guy,” (209) and he didn’t have his first serious relationship until he was 23, but it ended when he began traveling for his career. In his twenties he enjoyed being single, but by age 30, as his friends began pairing up, he hated going to bars and being alone at events. Once he decided he wanted something serious, he began dating an old acquaintance and they moved in together.

Fear of Settling Down, Fear of Settling

For many people, when they say they’re scared of settling down with someone, what they really mean is that they’re afraid they’re settling when a better option could be just around the corner.

Passionate Love and Companionate Love

Love has two phases. In the beginning, passionate love “is where you and your partner are just going ape shit for each other” (214). After a while, companionate love takes over. Companionate love “is neurologically different from passionate love […] companionate love is associated with the regions having to do with long-term bonding and relationships” (215). During the transition from passionate love to companionate, some people feel like they’ve lost the excitement and break up, while others grow closer together as “life companion[s]” (218).

Do You Need to Get Married?

When people get married, their passionate love eventually peaks and transforms into the more subtle companionate love. Ansari questions why people get married, especially considering the statistic that “89 percent of the global population lives in a country with a falling marriage rate” (220). He wonders what would happen if people just sought continual flings, thus staying in the passionate love phase, rather than getting married and inevitably falling into companionate love. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt says that people don’t build a life together during the passionate love phase; it’s only when you grow with someone in companionate love that you can build a life together.

Monogamy, Monogamish

Many people that Ansari interviewed say that they’re “torn between the benefits of a faithful, monogamous relationship and the novelty and excitement of single life” (224). The sex columnist Dan Savage invented the term “monogamish” (228) to describe the idea that monogamy is defined relative to each couple. He thinks that monogamy is an unrealistic restraint on a relationship, and that people should figure out how they want to handle sex with other people inside a committed relationship. Ansari interviews people that have been in successful open relationship and others who have hated them; the majority, however, doesn’t think that open relationships are realistic because they aren’t sustainable—they usually dissolve in the end.