Extravagant Expectations: New Ways to Find Romantic Love in America

In Extravagant Expectations Paul Hollander investigates how Americans now pursue romantic partners and enduring relationships. What enduring human qualities are they looking for? What conventional ideas of romantic love survive, even if modified by American cultural values and social conditions? For answers to these questions, Mr. Hollander has searched and analyzed the printed advertisements (personals), the online immediate and anonymous person-to-person communications made possible by dating sites, and the advice offered by self-help and "relationship" books. He weighs the advantages and shortcomings of these methods against a background of popular culture, advertising, and pop psychology. Individualism, high expectations, social and geographic mobility, changing sex roles, and the American national character-all play a part in this fascinating, hugely entertaining, and finally sobering exploration of men and women, of all ages, searching for love.