Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (27 page)

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Although there are many differences between the dating and hooking-up scripts, there are also important similarities. One thing that has not changed with the shift to hooking up is that men continue to hold most of the power, as they did in the dating era. When the calling system was H O O K I N G U P A N D DAT I N G

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abandoned in favor of dating, there was a shift in power from women to men.47 In the calling era, young women and their mothers had the power to invite men to call (i.e., come to their home for a visit). If a man was interested in a woman, he had to hope for this invitation. However, when dating became the dominant script, only men could initiate a date.48 Men were responsible for paying for the date, so the decision was in the hands of the man to figure out what he could afford and then ask a woman of interest to accompany him for the evening. This often left women waiting by the phone for a man’s invitation.49

With the hookup script, the power to initiate is less gendered; both men and women can signal interest in hooking up. So, with regard to initiation, women in the hookup era may have more power than women had in the dating era. However, in the hookup era, it is not the power to initiate, but the ability to ultimately get what they want that demonstrates men’s continuing dominance.50 Many of the women I interviewed indicated that they wanted “something more” than just a one-night hookup encounter. Women do not necessarily object to hooking up per se; rather, they object to how often hooking up fails to evolve into some semblance of a relationship. Moreover, women feel that men have the power to decide whether a hookup turns into “seeing each other” or “going out.”51 Thus, women have a great deal of difficulty obtaining what they want via the hookup script. This is not the case for men. Many of the men I interviewed indicated that they could choose to be in a relationship if they wanted to; however, they often preferred to hook up with no strings attached.

KB
: You didn’t want to be a steady boyfriend?

Tony
: No, definitely not.

KB
: Why not?

Tony
: Because then you get into that whole other world and it’s a fucking mess. [Laughs]

KB
: So, why are relationships a mess? Why do you like the other way of interacting?

Tony
: Well, they [relationships] can be cool, don’t get me wrong, like I loved being in relationships before, but as far as right now, that’s not what I want and I think a lot of people don’t want that just because they’re graduating. Like why hang out with a girl right now, this is actually [a] pretty good

[thought], why hang out with a girl right now when you 174

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have one semester left before you’re graduating? So, a lot of my time is going into hanging out with my good friends and I hate to lose that and invest it into a girl, which I’m probably more than likely not going to marry, you know. So, this is the last couple of months with my best friends; why would I invest my time with someone that I’m not going to hang out with that much [after college].

KB
: You mentioned marriage [earlier]. Do you picture yourself getting married at any particular age? Or do you ever think about that?

Tony
: Definitely. Probably like around late twenties. [Senior, State University]

Although Tony did “go out” with someone for part of his college years, he often terminated relationships before they got to the point of being serious or exclusive. Many of the men I interviewed, like Tony, were active members of the hookup scene, but were not utilizing it for the purpose of finding a relationship. They were able to have satisfying sexual encounters via the hookup script without offering commitment in return. During the dating era, a man often had to spend a great deal of time with a woman before she was willing to become sexual with him.

Moreover, the man often had to ask a woman to marry him before he could hope to have sexual intercourse.52 This is no longer the case in the college hookup scene. Although this is a difference between the hookup and the dating scripts, the commonality is that men have a greater share of power in both eras. During the dating era, men held the power because only they could initiate dates, while women played a more passive role. During the hookup era, both men and women can initiate hookup encounters, but it is men who still have the power to control the intensity of the relationship.

As in the dating script, as described in Waller’s study of Penn State University students in the 1930s, relationships today are governed by the “principle of least interest.”53 This means that the person with the least interest in continuing the relationship holds all of the power or has the upper hand. In the dating era, this could be either the man or the woman. In the college hookup scene, men typically are the ones with the least interest in a continuing relationship. The college men I interviewed talked about the feeling of having many women to choose from, so there was no need to hold on to a particular woman. Most of H O O K I N G U P A N D DAT I N G

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the college women I spoke to, on the other hand, were interested in turning hookup partners into boyfriends. Violet, a junior at State University, relayed an example from her own experience.

KB
: Have you ever had a situation where you wanted a hookup to turn into something more and they didn’t want it, or vice versa?

Violet
: Yeah. I had a friend of mine who I hooked up [with] one night and it was the kind of scenario where we were friends and I wanted something more out of it and he didn’t.

KB
: And how did he know you wanted more and how did you know he didn’t?

Violet
: Well, like I called him after we hooked up and he was like:

“Hey, what is going on?” And I was like: “If you want to go out sometime give me a call.” And he was like: “Yeah, okay.” And he never called me. And we would see each other

[sometimes] . . . and he’d just be like: “Hey.” And it never came to anything; [it was] just that one time.

Liz, a freshman at Faith University, encountered a similar issue.

KB
: You said that you’re not really sure why things fizzled out

[between you and the guy you have been hooking up with repeatedly] but do you feel like it was more one person’s doing than the other? Was it more him or more you?

Liz
: It was more him. We had this talk once because people started labeling us as like “together.” And that freaked him out because, I don’t even know why. He didn’t [want that].

He was like: “Whoa! I just got here. I don’t want a girlfriend.

I’m not hooking up with anyone else right now, but I don’t want to be labeled as like hooking up with just one person.” You know what I’m saying? [He didn’t] want it to be like:

“Oh, there’s Liz and oh where’s [your boyfriend] John?” Whatever.

Both in college and after, women were interested in pursuing relationships with marriage potential sooner than men were interested in doing so. The idea that a woman’s “clock is ticking” while a man has

“all the time in the world” fundamentally affects who holds the power.

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Thus, the hookup era’s power dynamic carries over postcollege. Many of the alumni women I spoke with discussed the challenge they faced in trying to get the men in whom they were interested to commit to them.

KB
: How did you know you were together [in a relationship]?

Did you verbalize it?

Raquel
: I had been calling him my boyfriend from the very beginning . . . but he’s very handsome and . . . he had a bunch of women he was juggling in the beginning and they fell by the wayside and I was the one still standing . . . he would not call me his girlfriend until one day in August when we went out to dinner and ran into somebody and he introduced me as his girlfriend. That was the first time I ever heard those words, and I was like: “Thank God!” He was a battle in the beginning; he never wanted to have a girlfriend . . . I had to work hard for this relationship. I was like: “I don’t know what to do.” He will only see me once every two weeks and only call me once every two weeks.

KB
: So you were hoping, almost from the beginning, that it would develop more and were kind of waiting until he was ready?

Raquel
: Yeah.

KB
: When you said he was a battle and you put a lot of work in

[during] the beginning [of the relationship], other than waiting and hoping he was going to ask you out more, what else did you feel like you were doing to put in work?

Raquel
: It’s putting in the brainpower and working to mold him into thinking I am his girlfriend and keeping myself back and not bother[ing] him . . . I had to really bite my tongue and try hard not to nag him. [I had to] let him take his time and make his decision about whether I was right for him. . . . I didn’t want to hound him, or ask too many questions. I just wanted to be the sweet, nice person that I am. It was like working really hard to prove to him that I was someone he wanted to be with. It did work out and I knew he and I would be good together, but I had to work hard at not pushing too hard. I was like: “What can I do to make this decision easier for you?” He said: “Keep doing what you are doing. Everything you are doing is great.” [24-year-old alumnus of State University]

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Many of the women I interviewed had a story similar to Raquel’s: a woman who was involved, sexually and otherwise, with a man often wanted that man to be in an exclusive relationship with her. When the two parties were not on the same page, women struggled with whether to keep “hanging on” with the hope of a happy ending or to “move on” and start searching for a new partner. These women found it very difficult to end a relationship, even when they were not satisfied with its quality. For college women this sometimes came in the form of booty-call relationships or repeat hookup relationships with a man they were hoping would eventually agree to a committed relationship (i.e., “seeing each other” or “going out”). Unfortunately, these women were often disappointed when hooking up failed to evolve into something more than that. This difficulty became amplified for alumni women who were looking for a boyfriend and ultimately a potential lifelong mate.

Despite women’s interest in finding boyfriends, many reported that the men they were interested in pursuing a relationship with were hesitant to be in an exclusive relationship. Several alumni women indicated that this problem led to an “on again, off again” relationship while the tug-of-war over commitment was fought.

Shana
: He’s not ready to commit. He wants to keep playing and I just can’t sit around anymore because it hurts too much. All of his like, other people.

KB
: Other girls?

Shana
: Yeah.

KB
: So he wants to be involved with you, but wants it to be a nonexclusive thing?

Shana
: [Right, so] . . . then it comes to the point where he says: “We have to talk.” And I am like: “Oh great! [sarcastic tone] Here we go.” . . . We are famous for having talks. [He says]: “I want to make sure we are on the same page, that you realize that I am still not ready to commit to you. I can see us in the future together, but not right now.” A relationship with someone is not in his plan. He needs to accomplish some things in his career and be settled. He is very analytical and logical and he thinks he can be analytical and logical when it comes to relationships. But I keep trying to tell him that:

“No, [it doesn’t work that way].”

KB
: What did you say to him when he gave you this talk?

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Shana
: Just that I feel like I am either setting myself up for the biggest fall of my life [if I wait it out and we don’t end up together] or the chance for my dreams all coming true. And it’s like—do I take that chance? Am I going to end up being 35

and single still waiting for [him] to come around? [24-year-old alumnus of Faith University]

Carol
: So before me he dated people for like two months, then he’d move on. He wouldn’t ever let it get serious; he just did it to date but not to get more involved. He’s told me now that

[our relationship] was serious to the extent that we weren’t dating anyone else. He was my boyfriend. But any time he thought it was getting too involved, like I was being too dependent on him . . . he would just say: “I am not ready for this.” [He would] get scared . . . and he would always say to me: “I am breaking up now because I can’t do this to you farther down the road.” The last time we broke up . . . I realized, not what I was doing wrong but, I was kind of pushing him away a little bit, scaring him off. But also it was because of him. He would make me so insecure.

KB
: Give me an example of something you might do to scare him off or [something] that would show that you are too dependent.

Carol
: It was just little stuff. He said now it wasn’t so much me being dependent on him, it was just that he wasn’t ready to be [in a relationship]. Like I would call him and ask his advice on something and he would think: “Why is she calling me to ask me that?” I would ask him [advice] now and he would answer me. I don’t think now that I was being as dependent as he was saying. He wasn’t ready for me to ask him his advice or to do the full couple thing. But we should have been [ready]. We dated for nine months; it was serious dating. We weren’t seeing anyone else; we saw each other every weekend and even during the week and we talked every day. He was my boyfriend. It was one of those things where we just weren’t on the same page at the same time about what we wanted and stuff like that. [24-year-old alumnus of Faith University]

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One can clearly see that Waller’s “principle of least interest” is still (60-some years after he coined the phrase) largely dictating who holds the power among young singles. Given the relationship struggles that many women go through, it is obvious why advice books, such as
He’s
Just Not That Into You,
end up being best-sellers.54