We benefited immensely from the contributions of scholars and dating experts who generously shared their time and ideas: danah boyd, Andrew Cherlin, Stephanie Coontz, Laurie Davis, Pamela Druckerman, Thomas Edwards, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Jonathan Haidt, Sheena Iyengar, Dan Savage, Natasha Schüll, Barry Schwartz, Clay Shirky, and Sherry Turkle. These are all incredibly smart people and I feel lucky to have gotten to spend time with them and steal some of their wisdom.
I also want to give a special shout-out to a few people who were extremely helpful with our data. Christian Rudder, a cofounder of OkCupid, and Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and adviser to Match.com, offered us all kinds of original data from their dating sites and surveys. Victoria Taylor and Erik Martin at Reddit helped us set up the Modern Romantics subreddit, which proved to be an invaluable research tool. Michael Rosenfeld, of Stanford University, shared data from his amazing survey, “How Couples Meet and Stay Together,” and Jonathan Haidt of New York University allowed us to reproduce and take some liberties with his graphs.
Geoff Mandel is responsible for the amazing Photoshop work in the book and quickly addressed ridiculous e-mails from me that said things like “Hey Geoff, can we make the raptors in the Jurassic Park Honeymoon Suite 30% bigger and also put romantic candles on them?” Walter Green did the excellent graphs and layout. I must also give a huge thanks to Warren Fu and Crisanta Baker who helped with early concepts for the book jacket. The final jacket artwork was designed by Jay Shaw, with photography by Ruvan Wijesooriya. The limited edition’s jacket was crafted by Dawn Baille and her team at BLT.
In New York City we got logistical help from Jessica Coffey, Siera Dissmore, Victor Bautista, Sebastien Theroux, and Matthew Shawver. In Los Angeles, Honora Talbot and Dan Torson kept us in gear. Also want to shout-out the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre for helping provide venues for some of our larger focus groups, and the University Settlement for helping us arrange interviews with their seniors.
A small group of friends and colleagues read early drafts of the manuscript, and their comments helped us sharpen the final version. These folks include: Aniz Ansari, Siera Dissmore, Enrique Iglesias,* Jack Moore, Matt Murray, Kelefa Sanneh, Lizzie Widdicombe, Andrew Weinberg, Robb Willer, Harris Wittels, Jason Woliner, and Alan Yang.
Our agents and managers, Richard Abate, David Miner, and Dave Becky at 3Arts, Mike Berkowitz at APA (for Aziz), and Tina Bennett at William Morris (for Eric), were great advocates at every stage of the process. I also want to thank my publicist, Jodi Gottlieb, who, even though we technically have no clue what the press will be like for this project as I type this, I am so sure will work tirelessly to get the word out. I also need to thank David Cho, who does a lot of random shit very well on all fronts digital and is always down to get delicious Korean food with me. My lawyers, Jared Levine, Corinne Farley, and Ted Gerdes, who sent me awesome e-mails that said things like “You absolutely cannot say the old couple from the stock image site are ‘fucking other people’ unless you make it explicitly clear that they are not actually ‘fucking other people.’”
Scott Moyers, our editor at Penguin, has been incredible every step of the way. He got the concept of this book immediately, always supported it, and never tried to make it something it was not. In addition to Scott, we need to thank Ann Godoff, Mally Anderson, Akif Saifi, Hilary Roberts, Jeannette Williams, and the rest of the team at Penguin Press, who always had our backs as well.
And finally, our greatest thanks go to our own partners in modern romance.
To Kate, who endured her husband’s unexpected run as a spokesman for American singles, Eric hopes that this book has redeemed him.
To Courtney, if every person were lucky enough to have a partner as supportive, loving, caring, talented, and beautiful as you—I doubt there’d be a market for a book like this.
To Eric, this is Aziz. I hope I don’t get you in trouble with your wife because I totally destroyed you in the “who wrote a sweeter note to their person” contest.
NOTES
Chapter 1: Searching for Your Soul Mate
1. James H. S. Bossard, “Residential Propinquity as a Factor in Marriage Selection,” American Journal of Sociology 38, no. 2 (1932): 219–24.
2. John S. Ellsworth Jr., “The Relationship of Population Density to Residential Propinquity as a Factor in Marriage Selection,” American Sociological Review 13, no. 4 (1948): 444–48.
3. William M. Kephart, “Some Correlates of Romantic Love,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 29, no. 3 (1967): 470–74.
4. Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Penguin, 2006), 7.
5. Elizabeth Rice Allgeier and Michael W. Wiederman, “Love and Mate Selection in the 1990s,” Free Inquiry 11, no. 3 (1991): 25–27.
6. Esther Perel, “The Secret to Desire in a Long-Term Relationship,” TED lecture, February 2013.