نتیجه

CONCLUSION

WHEN I STARTED THIS BOOK, I had a lot of burning questions about modern romance. The shenanigans we all have experienced often left me confused, frustrated, and angry. Trying to find love (or even something casual) in a romantic climate filled with endless scheduling texts and hurdles like Tanya’s “silencing” of 2012 can be a stressful experience.

Then, even after finding a great, healthy relationship with a loving partner, a whole new set of questions arose. I worried about settling down. Should I close all the exciting doors of today’s single world? If things start to feel routine and less exciting, is sexting going to make our romantic life any better? If I suspect that my partner has something going on the side, what are the ethics of looking at her Facebook or phone messages to find out? And if passionate love fades eventually, should I be seeking a long-term, monogamous relationship anyway?

I wrote this book because I wanted to better understand all the conundrums that come up in modern romance. So, after teaming up with an eminent sociologist, interviewing hundreds of people, consulting the world’s foremost experts on romance and relationships, conducting fieldwork in five countries, and reading a mountain of studies and books and news articles and academic papers, what exactly have I learned?

A lot, actually.

Here’s what I took away from this entire experience:

Finding someone today is probably more complicated and stressful than it was for previous generations—but you’re also more likely to end up with someone you are really excited about.

Our search for the right person—and even our idea of what “the right person” actually means—has changed radically in a very, very short amount of time.

If I had been a young person a few generations ago, I would have gotten married pretty young. Most likely, I would have wound up marrying some girl who lived in my neighborhood in my hometown of Bennettsville, South Carolina, around the time I was twenty-three. She would have been even younger, which means she would have been going straight from her father’s arms into mine, with no time to develop or pursue her own interests.

Let’s say her family owned the local Hardee’s franchise.*

Her parents would meet me early on and decide I was a decent guy with a decent job who wasn’t going to murder anyone. We’d set off on a brief period of dating and then get married.

I’d run the Hardee’s and probably be pretty good at it. Maybe I’d catch wind of a guy who was running a huge “biscuit extortion” scam to smuggle biscuits across the border to Georgia. The scam would work like this: The guy and his partner would steal biscuits from our store and then sell the stolen biscuits at a lower cost on the biscuit black market. After getting suspicious of his frequent trips to Georgia, I would hide in the bed of a Ford F-150, under a bunch of biscuits, and when they reached their destination, I’d dramatically pop up and go, “GIMME BACK MY BISCUITS.”

The family would be proud.

Ideally, my wife and I would grow together and have a happy relationship. But maybe, as we grew, we’d become different people and realize the relationship wasn’t working. Maybe my wife would resent her homemaker role and have desires and goals beyond those afforded to women of the era. Maybe I’d be a dissatisfied grump who eventually joined Alfredo in a retirement home where we schemed for doughnuts on the reg.

But I don’t live in that era. When I hit twenty-three, I wasn’t thinking about marriage at all. Instead I got the chance to experience “emerging adulthood” and grow as a person. I met people from all over the world in this part of my life. I wasn’t limited to just the folks I knew in my neighborhood in Bennettsville. So as I grew older, I figured out my career, I dated people in New York and Los Angeles, and eventually I started dating a beautiful chef from Texas whom I met through friends of friends in New York.

We would have never met in previous generations, because I would have been married to the Hardee’s girl and she would have probably been settled down in Texas with some guy she met in her neighborhood, maybe a hot-sauce king named Dusty.* And who knows if we would have even hit it off if we did meet? I became a very different person between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-one.

The situation I have now is probably a better deal for me than the one I would have had a few generations ago. If you are a woman, forget about it. With all the cultural advancements, middle-class and professional women of this era have gained the freedom to have their own lives and careers without the need for marriage. Having a husband and kids isn’t a prerequisite to having a well-rounded, fulfilling adult life anymore. To be clear, I’m not saying that filling that traditional housewife role over being a professional is a bad thing to do today, and I know that the decisions women make about work are complicated. Also, I’m not saying that women who do choose careers hate their kids, etc. Am I clear here? I’M NOT SHITTING ON ANYONE’S LIFE CHOICE (unless the choice is to smoke crack and treat your kids like the Mo’Nique character treats Precious in the movie Precious). But what’s important is that more women than ever are able to make that choice for themselves.

Even if women do make the choice to pursue their careers, the research shows that they still do way more of their share of the domestic work than men (step it up, dudes), but overall they are closer to being equitable partners than they were a few generations ago. They don’t have to settle down at twenty with some bozo who their parents think will be a good match because he has a good job or whatever.

The “good-enough marriage” is definitely not good enough for today’s singles. We’re not content to marry someone who happens to live down the street and gets along okay with our parents.

Sure, there were lots of people in previous generations who met someone in the neighborhood and grew to have a deep, loving soul mate–level bond. But there are many others who didn’t. And the current generation won’t take that risk. We want a soul mate. And we are willing to look very far, for a very long time, to find one.

A soul mate isn’t just someone we love. As for our grandparents, there are probably lots of people out there whom we could settle down with and, in the fullness of time, grow to love. But we want more than love. We want a lifelong wingman/wingwoman who completes us and can handle the truth, to mix metaphors from three different Tom Cruise movies.

Historically, we’re at a unique moment. No one has ever been presented with more options in romance and expected to make a decision where the expectations are so astronomically high. And with all these choices, how can anyone possibly be sure that they’ve made the right one?

Get over it: You can’t! So you just have to power through and have hope that as you grow and mature, you’ll eventually learn to navigate this new romantic world and find someone who does feel right for you.

Technology hasn’t just changed how we find romance; it’s also put a new spin on the timeless challenges we face once we’re in a relationship.

One of the strange things that happens in modern romance is that once you start dating someone, your physical lives aren’t the only things that get entangled; your phone worlds also merge. Today couples have a shared space that they can use for something intimate like sexting. Sometimes this shared phone world is a source of excitement and novelty, but other times the phone world becomes a new source of jealousy. We wind up snooping rather than trusting our special person.

And the fears that make us snoop are valid, because, let’s face it—people cheat. In fact, people make mistakes in relationships all the time. On this issue the United States might be able to learn something from France. I’m not very comfortable with a French woman being forced to live with her husband having a long-term mistress, but I do like that the French are willing to realistically acknowledge the essential fallibility of human nature and the fact that people, despite their best intentions and their love for their partners, do stray. Like Dan Savage (and, to an extent, Pitbull) says, a relationship is bigger than the idea of sexual exclusivity.

Treat potential partners like actual people, not bubbles on a screen.

With online dating and smartphones, we can message people all over the world. We can interact with potential mates on a scale that simply wasn’t conceivable for previous generations. But this shift to digital communication has a powerful side effect. When you look at your phone and see a text from a potential partner, you don’t always see another person—you often see a little bubble with text in it. And it’s easy to forget that this bubble is actually a person.

As we see more and more people online, it can get difficult to remember that behind every text message, OkCupid profile, and Tinder picture there’s an actual living, breathing, complex person, just like you.

But it’s so, so important to remember this.

For one thing, when you forget you’re talking to a real person, you might start saying the kinds of things in a text message that no person in their right mind would ever say to a real-life person in a million years.

If you were in a bar, would you ever go up to a guy or girl and repeat the word “hey” ten times in a row without getting a response? Would you ever go up to a woman you met two minutes ago and beg her to show you one of her boobs? Even if you are just looking for a casual hookup, do you really think this will work? And if so, do you really want to bone someone who responds to this?

Yet people send these kinds of text messages all the time. I can only conclude that it’s because it’s so easy to forget that you’re talking to another human being and not a bubble. And the content of these bubbles can really shape how you, the person, are judged.

We have two selves: a real-world self and a phone self, and the nonsense our phone selves do can make our real-world selves look like idiots. Our real-world selves and our phone selves go hand in hand. Act like a dummy with your phone self and send some thoughtless message full of spelling errors, and the real-world self will pay the price. The person on the other end sees no difference between your two selves. They never think, Oh, I’m sure he’s much more intelligent and thoughtful in person. This is just his “lazy phone persona.”

If you text something innocuous like “Wsup” to someone you just met and want to go out with, it may not seem particularly dumb. But when you think back on all our interviews and remember how much of that garbage is in everyone’s phones, you realize it makes you seem like a pretty boring, generic person.

Don’t just write a stupid “Wsup” message. Try to say something thoughtful or funny and invite this person to do a nice, interesting thing. Make it personal. Mention that thing you were joking about, like seeing a dog driving a hovercraft—I mean, wow, how lucky were you two to see that together? I wish I could’ve been there. Who knows, this could be the person you spend the rest of your life with! I have many friends who start something with the intention of its being casual, but there is a spark and it ends up being serious. It even happened to me.

Your most casual encounter could lead to something bigger, so treat those interactions with that level of respect. Even if it doesn’t blossom, treating the messages with that level of respect will surely make the person on the other end more receptive as well. There is no downside to it.

And if you really want to go nuts, maybe a thoughtful phone conversation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world?

On another note, I also learned that everyone plays games with texting, like waiting longer than the other person to text, sending replies of equal length, always trying to get the last word, and the like. Even if you say you “don’t play games,” that is a type of game—it is the “I don’t play games” game.

Everyone hates these games and no one wants to play them. For the most part, people just want to be honest and say how they feel, and they definitely want others to be honest and open with them. But here’s the thing: Unfortunately those games are actually kind of effective. No matter how much people want things to be different, I don’t think we can defeat the insecurities and tendencies built into our internal psychology.

But let’s all realize we are in the same boat dealing with the same shit. So if you aren’t into someone, before just ignoring them, try to be mindful of how frustrating it is to be on the other side of that and maybe try crafting them an honest message or, at the least, lie and say: “Hey, sorry, working on my debut rap album, Fantabulous, so gonna be in the studio nonstop and need to focus, not dating at the moment. I’m very flattered though and you are a great person, all the best.”

• • •

In books like this it’s easy to get negative about technology and its impact. This shift in communication can be very annoying, and hearing older generations bemoan it, you can easily romanticize the past. But I was at a wedding recently where I saw that there is a beautiful side to things as well.

During the toasts, a bridesmaid shared some early e-mails that the bride had sent her years ago when she was first pursuing the groom, who was painfully oblivious to her advances. The initial e-mails showed her being sad that the guy didn’t love her back and worried that she should give up. Her friend even said that she should “hang it up” because she was becoming “that girl.” But she kept on, and months later there was an e-mail saying that she was madly in love.

Hearing those e-mails was remarkable, and it made me realize that digital technology gives all of us the chance to have this very unique record of our romantic relationships.

On our one-year anniversary my girlfriend gave me a huge book that compiled the entire history of our text messages from the first year of our relationship. It was hilarious to look back on all the things we said. For certain messages she wrote out what was going on in her mind, and it was amazing.

Since I’ve done this to hundreds of people, I will finally do it to myself. Let’s look at my exchanges. To set the scene, I got her number at a barbecue in Brooklyn and we talked about getting ramen later that week.

Okay, so the first message was sent by me after I called and sent the text in lieu of a voice mail. My girlfriend didn’t call me back, though; she texted. In the book she gave me, she reveals that at the time, she didn’t realize that I’d asked her to call. After realizing her mistake, she freaked out and was worried that by texting instead of calling she would come off looking too nervous or scared.

Note the day waiting period.

I didn’t respond to her next message until the next day at 10:13 A.M. I definitely intentionally waited so as not to come off as overeager. And I specifically remember running a draft by a friend and rewriting it several times before sending it off. (The hokey pokey cookie is a reference to a cookie that her restaurant made, one that she knew I loved.)

Today I know for a fact that my waiting did indeed cause some uneasiness. She told me that she felt I must have somehow been offended by the “how funny are you?” comment. But the same night she was waiting, she got word that I’d asked a friend of hers if she was in fact single, so she knew all was well.

Still, the waiting did have an effect. She told me that she was really excited when I wrote back the next morning.

The early messages are interesting to look back on, because they reveal so much about our mind-sets at the time. Both of us were anxious about the texts we were crafting, but we were oblivious to the fact that we were in the same boat.

As things progressed in the relationship (and in our messages), she talked about how much it meant to her when I sent some early loving texts saying that I missed her or was thinking about her. When I read them, it took me back through all the excitement and fun we’d had during those times.

So although these new tools may cause us all stress and angst in the early parts of a relationship, the same technology has also given us all a new place to store, remember, and share our love for each other, and I’m glad we have it.

Don’t think of online dating as dating—think of it as an online introduction service.

Online dating has probably been the single biggest game changer in the hunt for your soul mate. Remember: Between 2005 and 2012 one-third of all the couples who got married in the United States met on the Internet. By the time this book is out, that number undoubtedly will be higher and some new app or site will make Tinder or whatever is currently popular seem outdated.

Many online daters we spoke with were having success, but many were also frustrated and fed up with the scene altogether. However, most of the ones who were fed up seemed to be spending more time in front of their screens than in front of their dates in real life.

Online dating works best as a forum where you can meet people whom you’d never otherwise be able to meet. It’s the ultimate way to expand the search beyond the neighborhood.

The key is to get off the screen and meet these people. Don’t spend your nights in endless exchanges with strangers. Communicate with people you have some chance of liking, then, after a few messages—enough to figure out if there’s something really, really wrong with them—just ask them out.

After a certain point, if you’re still trading endless back-and-forth messages online, you’re just wasting time. Have faith in your ability to size someone up in person.

The allure of online dating and its vast supply of potential dates can make staying in and clicking through profiles in your pajamas seem like a better option than heading out to a crowded bar or restaurant, but let’s not forget another great source of potential mates—the real world.

Remember Arpan, the dude who was so burned out on online dating? We contacted him about a year after the focus group to see whether he was still meeting women online and taking them to the bowling alley (just for drinks, of course).

We were delighted to hear that his whole love life had taken a turn for the better. He had met someone special and been dating her for a few months, and he seemed genuinely happy, with way more energy than he had shown that sad Sunday morning with us.

Arpan met his new lady in real life, but he credited his online dating experiences with helping him meet new people. He explained that all those unanswered messages had reduced his fear of rejection and made him less apprehensive about approaching women.

He met his girlfriend at a bar, after seeing her at a distance and working up the courage to introduce himself. “I walked towards her group, said hello to all of her friends, looked this girl straight in the eye and said, ‘I saw you from across the room and I just had to say hello.’” It was heartwarming to learn that Arpan had turned things around since we’d first met him, and it was fascinating to hear him trace his success in real-world romance to the things he learned while dating online.

With so many romantic options, instead of trying to explore them all, make sure you properly invest in people and give them a fair chance before moving on to the next one.

We have so many options and we’re horrible at analyzing them. We go on boring dates and we’re quick to move on to the next person.

Stack the deck in your favor. Go on interesting dates. Follow the “monster truck rally” theory, and do things that are going to help you experience what it’s really like to be with this person. Don’t just stare at each other across the table while sipping a beverage and making the same small talk you’ve made a thousand times about siblings, hometowns, and where you went to college.

Also, have faith in people. A person may seem just okay, but if you really invest time in the relationship, maybe they’ll be greater than you assume.

Think about it in terms of the music of rapper Flo Rida.* When you hear his latest song, at first you think, Goddamn it, Flo Rida. You’re just doing the same thing again, song after song. This song is nothing special at all. And by the tenth time you hear it, you’re like, FLO!!! YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN! THIS IS A HIT, BABY!!!

In a sense we are all like a Flo Rida song: The more time you spend with us, the more you see how special we are. Social scientists refer to this as the Flo Rida Theory of Acquired Likability Through Repetition.

• • •

The other thing that has stuck with me is how important it is to analyze options in the real world, not just on the screen. When I was finishing up this book, I got contacted by a woman who had been in the audience of a stand-up show I did in Michigan in September 2013. During the show I was discussing texting and asked if anyone had met someone recently and had been in a back-and-forth. This woman, who was sitting in the front, raised her hand, and I invited her to come up to the front of the stage and share her experience.

She told me she’d met the guy about a week earlier and had been messaging back and forth. She had met him through friends of friends at a bonfire. He lived in her apartment complex, and after meeting her, he left her a note on her door that said, “Dinner tomorrow?” and his apartment number.

She wrote, “I’m busy,” on the note and put it back on front of his door.

He then placed the note back on her door and wrote, “You’re busy tonight? How about Monday, Wednesday, or Friday?”

She then took the conversation to Facebook and sent him a message that said:

He responded: “No worries. Family always comes first.”

As always, you can tell so much by these messages. Her extended list of excuses, including that really intense one about the dying grandma, did not bode well for this would-be suitor. I asked the audience to clap if they thought she actually liked this guy and would go out with him when things “settled down.” There was a smattering of claps. When I asked if people thought she didn’t like him and they would never go out, there was massive applause. The audience knew this lady wasn’t ready to go out with this guy.

After hearing this, she said, “Well, I’ve seen him around since and he’s not terrible,” and that she would “maybe” go out with him. It was the last I heard of this situation.

Then in September 2014, a year later, the woman was able to get in contact with me. She said that after we read through the messages, she realized she should give him a second chance. They started dating, and now, a year later, they were getting married!

It was pretty insane to hear.

And in the context of this book I think it’s an important story to remember. With all our new tools for connecting and communicating, there’s still nothing more useful than actually spending time with a person face-to-face.

Often, when you’re out in the single world meeting people, you meet someone you like, get their number, and put it right in your phone, transforming them into an “option” that lives in your device. Sometimes you and that option engage in some phone-based interaction and you meet up in person. But sometimes that exchange never happens. That potentially cool, exciting person dies there, buried in your phone.

When I was actively dating, there was a woman I’d met in a bar. For whatever reason, our text conversation fizzled and we never met up after our initial meeting. We ran into each other at a mutual friend’s party years later and really hit it off. I felt dumb. Why hadn’t I ever followed up with this great person?

After writing this book, I think I know why. It’s probably because I was busy chasing other options. I didn’t text her and left her to die in my phone.

For me the takeaway of these stories is that, no matter how many options we seem to have on our screens, we should be careful not to lose track of the human beings behind them. We’re better off spending quality time getting to know actual people than spending hours with our devices, seeing who else is out there. O kay, well, I’m fucking done with my book!!! YEAH!!!

Before we part, though, I want to say one more thing about our current romantic conundrums. These days there are a lot of people out there saying that social media and all our new communications technologies are making it impossible for people to really connect with one another. There are an equal number of people saying that our new media makes things better than ever. By now I hope it’s clear that I don’t buy either of these extreme arguments.

Culture and technology have always shaken romance. When the plow came in and made women’s labor value in the family unit drop, it was disruptive. When the car provided a means for people to travel and see people who lived farther away, that was disruptive too. Same with telegraphs, telephones, televisions, and whatever future inventions may come. Who knows, maybe some woman is reading this in the future and wondering, Ummm. . . well at least dudes weren’t teleporting dicks to your house on a regular basis! This sounds great.

History shows that we’ve continually adapted to these changes. No matter the obstacle, we keep finding love and romance.

Now that I’ve finished this project, I have a much richer understanding of the new romantic landscape. And the main thing I’ve learned from all this research is that we’re all in it together. I hope you feel this way too.

I wish you, and all the readers, the best of luck in modern romance.

And by best of luck, I mean I hope that one day you’ll meet someone amazing, text them a thoughtful message, take them to a monster truck rally, and then hopefully at some point, after a bowl of delicious ramen, make love to them in a Jurassic Park–themed love hotel in Tokyo.