Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus
Page 6
T H E H O O K U P
39
KB: So would you say that freshmen girls would think that a hook up might turn into something [relationship-wise] and girls that are sophomores, juniors and older would realize that that is not the case?
Violet: Yes.
Importantly, Marie, Jen, and Violet were juniors or seniors at the time of their interviews. Thus, they had had many opportunities to learn how the hookup script works in college. It seems likely, as Violet suggests, that many young women are less aware of these norms, particularly during freshman year. Thus, less experienced college women may be sexual with someone with the hope that such behavior will lead to a relationship; they may not suspect that their sexual availability decreases their chances of having the man pursue a relationship. One quantitative study confirmed what the upper-class women I spoke with believed; that is, 49 percent of college students who engaged in sexual intercourse during a hookup encounter said they never saw the person again.19 Indeed, members of the campus culture had to learn over time the rules of the hookup script.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
There are many potential outcomes of a hookup encounter. The college women I spoke with, particularly after freshman year, came to realize that you “have no idea what will come out of a hookup.” In a sense, hooking up is a roll of the dice. According to both men and women, the most likely outcome is “nothing”—the hookup partners part ways either the evening of the hookup or the next morning. No romantic relationship is directly pursued by either party, and their relationship returns to whatever they were to each other prior to the hookup. As Emily, a sophomore at Faith University, put it: KB: Generally speaking, of the students you know, if someone hooks up with someone is it likely that they’re going to hook up with them again or is it more often that it happens once and doesn’t happen again?
Emily: More often it happens once and doesn’t happen again.
KB: And why do you think it works that way?
40
T H E H O O K U P
Emily: I think that’s the accepted way that it is and I think that people drink and then they hook up and maybe there’s attraction there and then it’s not there anymore or maybe it’s awkward or maybe you hook up with someone you don’t really know and then you don’t really take the time to get their number. Like sometimes when I hook up with people like I might not have any interest in them, but it just happens to happen and you don’t expect anymore from it.
The students I spoke with indicated that if the two parties were friends before the hookup, they try to stay friends. If they were acquaintances before, they are cordial or perhaps even friendly when they run into each other again. Since a hallmark of the hookup script is that there are no strings attached, there is no reason for there to be any tension between the two after hooking up. However, both men and women often indicated that they did feel awkward or “weird” with a former partner after the hookup.20 Both parties involved in the hook up are not always in agreement about what will happen next; in fact, it is often the case that one party is more interested in furthering the relationship than the other.21
Although “nothing” is the most likely outcome of a hookup, that does not necessarily mean that the two people never hook up again. The fact that nothing usually results from a hookup means that no special relationship is formed between the two parties. The majority of students, like Lee, a freshman at Faith University, indicated that hooking up repeatedly with the same person was fairly common, even if there was little to no contact outside of the late-night party or bar interaction.
Lee: I see a lot of girls [that] will have someone in mind [that they want to hook up with that night]. Not talk to them all week, go to a party, go home with them, not talk to them the whole next week, go to the party, see them again, [and] go home with them. That is their person to go home with at a party. I see that a lot.
KB: A lot of times it doesn’t just happen one time, it is with the same person repeatedly?
Lee: Yeah, but with nothing in the middle.
KB: No phone calls, no e-mails, no contact during the week?
Lee: Correct.
T H E H O O K U P
41
KB: Weekends only?
Lee: Right. [Laughs]
Repeated hooking up does not automatically lead to any semblance of a relationship. Indeed, if there is no contact with the person during the week or at any time other than weekend nights, college students viewed it as nothing more than a “repeat hookup.” Another possible outcome of hooking up is a variation of hooking up repeatedly, known as “seeing each other.” This refers to cases where one college student will repeatedly hook up with the same person and there will be some attempts to “hang out” or spend time with the person in between hookup encounters. In addition to the phrase “seeing each other,” some interviewees referred to this as “talking,” or less often as “dating.”22 The contact between hookup encounters could take a variety of forms, including phone calls, text messages, e-mails, or instant messages. In addition to talking to each other, students suggested that they might also make plans to meet somewhere. However, the two would not go out alone; they would meet in a group setting and “hang out” with a larger group of friends and classmates, as is the case for most college-student socializing.
The type of relationships falling under the labels of “seeing each other,” “talking,” “hanging out,” or “dating” are still characterized by a low level of commitment, where hooking up with someone else is still a possibility. These relationships also tend to be short lived, lasting a few weeks or couple months before disintegrating. Many of the college women indicated that it is men who decide whether to continue seeing each other or whether a relationship will evolve.23 Furthermore, college women often seemed at a loss to explain why the man they were “seeing” decided to end things, as did Jen, a junior at State University.
Jen: You’ll hook up with them for a week or two weeks consecutively and then something weirdo happens [laughing].
KB: Like what?
Jen: Like you’ll see them with [another] girl one night and you are just standing there. I’ve seen that happen to my friends.
No one ever really . . . sits you down and says: “I don’t think this is working out,” [they don’t handle it] in a mature way.
[Laughing]
42
T H E H O O K U P
Marie, a senior at State University, added, “A lot of girls are fine in relationships and the guys just change, something clicks in the guy where they’re like: ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore.’” The least likely outcome of hooking up is that it leads to becoming a couple. In other words, two college students hook up and then decide after some period of time to be an exclusive couple or boyfriend/girlfriend. These relationships are referred to as “going out” or being “together” or “with” the other person. Exclusivity is one of the defining features of these relationships. Hooking up with someone outside of the relationship is considered “cheating” and will likely lead to a breakup of the relationship. During their freshman year, many college students, both male and female, tried to avoid becoming part of an exclusive relationship. Freshmen, and others recollecting their freshman experience, spoke of wanting to make a lot of friends during their first year and “see what’s out there.” Becoming a part of an exclusive couple was seen as being at odds with these goals. Liz, a freshman at Faith University, said, “I was one of those [people who thought] like: ‘Oh this is college, you know, I’m just going to keep my options open,’ blah, blah, blah.”
However, as students progress through their college years, some increasingly begin looking for an exclusive relationship, and female students seem considerably more interested than males that hooking up would lead to a relationship or at least something more than a one-time encounter. However, the hookup script does not seem conducive to relationship formation.
Rebecca, a sophomore from State University, explained how women are
often interested in more than just hooking up, sometimes trying to turn a hookup into a relationship. To this end, Rebecca said women fool themselves into believing they have a relationship when this is actually not the case. Rebecca referred to this phenomenon as having “fake boyfriends.” She explains what this means in the excerpt below.
Rebecca: I think girls . . . go to parties where they think the same guy
[they have hooked up with before] is going to be. I think they try to hook up with the same person. And guys they might
[try to hook up with the same person], but I really . . . don’t think so. I think [men’s motto is]: the more [girls], the better.
KB: The more different girls, the better?
T H E H O O K U P
43
Rebecca: Yeah, they like to have their little tally kind of thing
[laughs]. But, I think most girls want to try to find [or] stick with one guy so they can pretend they’re dating them.
KB: What do you mean by that, “pretend they’re dating”?
Rebecca: Well, I do it all the time, I haven’t had a boyfriend yet, but I had two fake boyfriends. [Laughing] Oh, they were great relationships [sarcastic tone]. You can kind of think that you’re together because you think you’re the only one in his life and he seems to care about you, you know? . . . You can kind of just make believe that [you’re together], like whatever he says you can twist it around to make it seem like something else. So like: “Yes, he loves me [sarcastic tone]!” And all of your friends are telling you that he loves you and that you are bound to be married, but you’re never [truly] together. So, it’s kind of that whole fake relationship thing.
KB: When do you figure out that you’re not really together?
Rebecca: Umm, when there’s another girl.
Although college students believed relationship formation to be the least likely outcome of hooking up, the fact that it is a possibility may partially explain what keeps the hookup script intact. One can hope that a hookup is going to lead to something more (i.e., some version of a relationship). Although college students generally realized that there are no guarantees, promises, or “strings attached,” the hope of a hookup leading to a relationship may loom large in the minds of some who decide to take part in hooking up. This may particularly be the case when a college student hooks up with someone she or he knows and “likes” in advance of the hookup. Several women indicated that knowing the rules of hooking up, especially knowing that nothing might come of a hookup, was something they learned over time. In other words, they were somewhat naïve their freshman year, but learned over time, “the hard way,” to have low expectations. For example, a senior, Marie, at State University said: Because I trusted guys so much . . . so when I . . . hooked up, and when they weren’t all like lovey-dovey and then I don’t know, then I’d hook up with somebody else and I just learned through experience that not every guy is going to fall all over you and be like: “Now I want a girlfriend.” You know what I mean? A lot of them just want to hook up with you and then never talk to you again (laughing) . . . and they don’t 44
T H E H O O K U P
care! And that definitely takes a long time to realize and even now you might know it, but you might . . . because of the fact that you might want a relationship, even knowing that might not stop you [from hooking up] because you think: “This time it might be different.” And you also have to learn that guys say a lot of things that they don’t mean.
They say a lot of things that you want to hear and you might fall for it, so it’s really hard to trust guys in starting a relationship.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO DATING?
The script for how college students become sexually intimate has dramatically changed from the dating script, which dominated campuses from the 1920s through the mid-1960s.24 The college students I interviewed said that they do not date in the traditional sense of the term.25
Additionally, the alumni I spoke with confirmed that they did not go out on formal dates during their college years. College students do not initiate romantic relationships by asking each other out to dinner or a movie with the hope that something sexual might happen at the end of the evening. Thus, the dominant cultural/sexual script for most of the twentieth century (i.e., asking someone out for a date as the first stage toward finding an intimate partner) is no longer being used by most college students. The following excerpts from my interviews with Emily (sophomore, Faith University), Joseph (senior, Faith University), Lisa (sophomore, State University) and Jen (junior, State University) illustrate the point that the current script on campus does not begin with dating. These comments were typical of both male and female students at State and Faith University.
KB: Do you know any students that date?
Emily: Like date?
KB: That go out on dates.
Emily: [Laughs] Umm, no. [Laughs] I would say like if you have a boyfriend, maybe you’ll go out, but I don’t know, I think that’s so out, like a culture from like my parents time that would ask each other out and stuff like that.
KB: So, the people you know don’t do that at all?
Emily: No.
• • •
T H E H O O K U P
45
KB: When you look around at your friends, do a lot of people go on dates?
Joseph: Once they’re actually boyfriend and girlfriend, I see them going out. But I usually don’t see anybody with the approach of saying: “Do you want to go out?” KB: Would you say that students date?
Lisa: Hmmm . . . not really, I don’t think they really do that much.
I don’t know anyone who, that’s what is really weird too when you were asking about how people get together in college, they just don’t really do that [date]. At least, I don’t know anyone who goes on dates.
KB: Have you gone on a date since you’ve been at State?
Lisa: I mean with my boyfriend now, but not before.
KB: Not before?
Lisa: No, not at all. I mean, nobody ever asked me [on a date]. I had boys that I liked or whatever, but it was never like that, we would just hang out or go to a party or whatever. None of my girlfriends have ever been on dates either since we’ve been here [at school].
KB: What do you envision when you hear the term “date”? What do you picture that to look like?
Lisa: I don’t know, going to a movie and dinner or something, something where it’s just the two of you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that [movie and dinner], that’s just the typical thing, but like something that just the two of you are doing by yourselves.
KB: Would you say that students at State University date?
Jen: No.
KB: What do you envision when I say date?
Jen: I think about somebody picking you up, bringing you flowers [laughing], taking you out to dinner and maybe a movie.
KB: And students here don’t do that?
Jen: No.
KB: Has anyone asked you on a date since you’ve come to State?
Jen: No.
KB: And none of your friends here have [gone on dates]?
46
T H E H O O K U P
Jen: I mean they’ve been asked out on dates I guess but it’s after they’ve been hooking up with the person . . . I haven’t gone out on a date here [at State University]. [Emphasis added]
In Jen and Lisa’s response to the question on whether students date, they refer to a key issue. College students recognize what the dating script is, but they do not follow it in the traditional sense because a date is no longer the mechanism by which college students find potential partners. It is rare for students to engage in behavior that resembles a traditional date (e.g., a pair going to dinner or a movie together) unless they are already in an exclusive relationship. As Jen implies, the pathway to becoming a couple, when a date might occur, begins with hooking up.
The terms “date” and “dating” are still used on college campuses today, but they are used far less frequently than
during the dating era, and they often do not have the same meaning they once did. Today, the term “date” is used to refer to (a) going out alone with someone with whom you are already in a serious relationship, or (b) the person you take to a formal dance. However, neither of these scenarios is very common because going on dates is no longer the centerpiece of campus social life as it once was.26 The term “dating” is used by some students in-terchangeably with “seeing each other,” “talking,” or “hanging out” to refer to hooking up on an ongoing basis with someone you have some form of contact with between hookup encounters. According to the men and women I spoke with, students in this type of relationship would rarely, if ever, go out to dinner or the movies or any other public place to spend time alone together. Thus, college students’ use of the term
“dating” does not reflect the traditional meaning of the term.
DATING VERSUS HOOKING UP
Hooking up and dating are fundamentally different. Each carries its own set of norms for behavior, and although there is some overlap, there are several critical distinctions. During the dating era, men initiated the invitations to go out on dates.27 The script for a date followed many widely recognized conventions. The man was supposed to contact the woman to ask for a date in advance, giving her at least several days’ notice; he was responsible for planning an activity for the date, such as T H E H O O K U P
47
going to dinner or a movie, as well as picking the woman up and driving (or walking) her home. Because the man was responsible for the initiation and planning of the date, he had to pay for any expenses.28
By contrast, hookup encounters generally occur at the culmination of a night of “hanging out” among a large group of friends and classmates at a campus party or local bar. Either the man or woman can initiate the interaction, but in either case the cues would be nonverbal. College students said that you can “just tell” when someone wants to hook up by his or her eye contact, body language, attentiveness, and so on.