A Joosr Guide to… Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

You should act online as you would in real life, treating people with respect

During the early phases of a relationship, our brains are stimulated to send pleasurable neurotransmitters around our bodies. They eventually rebalance after 12–18 months. This stage is referred to as “passionate love.” Following this comes “companionate love,” which is less intense, but is more stable. It affects the parts of your brain associated with long-term bonding, and so grows stronger over time. The most dangerous point in any relationship is the transition from passionate to companionate love, as what was once exciting and new transforms into something seemingly ordinary, and perhaps a little dull.
Some end the relationship before it gets to this stage, maintaining shorter relationships to stay in the passionate love phase. However, while trying to repeat the great feelings associated with passionate love can be tempting, this doesn’t bring true fulfillment. Settling down offers us the chance to complete ourselves, and find the deeper love and connection that only comes with a committed relationship.

Current studies indicate that 20–40 percent of heterosexual married men and 20–25 percent of women will have at least one affair, and there is a 70 percent incidence of cheating in non-married couples.

Sexting, the digital sharing of sexually explicit images, is a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly commonplace among younger generations—with half of all digitally connected 18–24-year-olds having received sexts at some point.

In one psychological study, shoppers were offered samples of jams in a luxury food store. They were either offered six types, or 24 types to choose from. When offered 24 types of jam, people were much less likely to actually buy anything. Meanwhile, those individuals who were presented with the smaller selection often ended up taking a jam home.

As the usage of online dating rises, you should resist creating a false online persona

Give people a chance, and rather than endlessly messaging back and forth, be bold and suggest meeting up to get to know each other a little better

A lack of a reply will often have a simple explanation behind it, or it could mean that the person just isn’t that interested. If you are the one who’s uninterested, keep in mind that ignoring messages can create unnecessary stress for others.

When studying the topic of reward uncertainty, psychologists discovered that when we are certain a reward is coming, we are less likely to want it. So if someone texts you often, or responds rapidly to your messages, you may become less interested in them. Whilst this is true, many of us feel anxious when we do not receive an instant response to our attempts to connect with someone, with differences in text response times entirely changing our perception of the tone of a conversation.

People tend to obsess over texting a potential love interest. The general consensus is that responding to a text too quickly looks desperate, and that the number of messages from each person should remain the same. However, some individuals have specific rules: that they should wait twice as long to reply as the other person did; that their texts should always be shorter than those they have received; or even that if the other person sent the last message in a conversation, they have “won” (no one likes to be left hanging!).