Has Hooking-up Replaced Dating?

July 5, 2007 11:36 am     Posted in Relationships, Sex  Jess - NYU g+ page

23257386.jpgThese girls say hooking-up is the new dating.


By Jess

Do you agree?

I don’t. I think hooking-up is the new way to stop feeling lonely on a Saturday night. The new way for collegiate / twenty-something aged girls to feel powerful and anti-emotional (since we’re constantly being told we overreact about everything). A new symptom of a sexually driven media culture, perhaps. But I don’t think it’s the new dating.

How little faith do we have in relationships these days if we think hooking-up is the only way to meet people? It’s one of the only ways to have an awkward sexual experience, but it’s certainly not the only way to meet a fantastic guy.

In fact, I think it’s a horrible way to meet a fantastic guy. The more I like someone, the less inclined I am to take a running leap into bed. It sounds a little backwards, but the more I want to be with someone, the longer I’ll hold out, because by then it’s about a connection, an experience, and not just gratification.

I mean, maybe I’ve got your grandma’s morals. Maybe I’m stuck in some backward, retro, pearls-and-bouffant-hairdo world. But honestly, aren’t we selling ourselves short when we liken hooking-up to dating? Aren’t we cheapening ourselves?

Hooking-up never makes me feel very classy, and it certainly doesn’t provide the satisfaction of a great date in the back of a small bar with someone I think is awesome. The memory of a great date can get me through long hours on the job, but the memory of a hook-up usually makes me hunch over my desk and make myself promise I’ll never do it again (especially with someone who thinks skull rings are an appropriate male accessory).

There’s nothing ethically wrong with hooking-up. Honestly, I’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I claimed it so, but I will say it’s decidedly low brow (of course, so is Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School, but I watched that shit to the better end). Let’s just end this by saying that if I were to meet the man of my dreams, I take dating over hooking-up with him any day.

What do you think, lovelies? Hooking-up or dating?

6 Comments on "Has Hooking-up Replaced Dating?"

  1. Darcy says:
    Thu, 5th Jul 20079:36 am 

    hooking up is definitely cheap, bland intimacy that doesn't feel as good as it should. Why only allow youself to have half-assed satisfaction when you can find something great? Dating is definitely better than hooking up (which isn't to say that hooking up can't be fun, it just shouldn't be your sole source of fun in that category)

  2. Shana says:
    Thu, 5th Jul 20072:46 pm 

    when do people hook up? when they can't get a date.

    Dating is the way to be happy. Hooking up is the way to get some.

  3. Mallie says:
    Mon, 9th Jul 20074:18 pm 

    Ugly people hook up.

  4. Harry says:
    Thu, 12th Jul 20072:15 pm 

    Hooking-up is just what it sounds like, something that not only is a natural function, but it can be

    full-filling if its done with the proper ground work

    "laid" first. I worked at a bar/dance-hall back in

    the 70s called the hitching post and the clientell

    who friequented the place did that not only with the

    persons who they met there, but us the staff as well

    . May have been fun but it was shallow. Hooking up is just another name for sexual intercourse. Fun but it can be shallow.

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