Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (8 page)

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?

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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

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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.

• • •

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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]?

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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

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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.

Neither the man nor the woman is responsible for the expenses incurred during the evening. In most cases, the only expense would be alcohol, and college students usually pay their own way or may buy “a round” of drinks for their friends.

Alcohol also seems to play a more central role in facilitating the hookup script than it did in the dating era.29 In fact, alcohol is not only available at campus social events that culminate in hookup encounters, but it is often consumed by one or both parties involved in the hookup.30 Many students, like Larry, a senior at Faith University believe that drinking alcohol lowers their inhibitions, thereby making a hookup possible: “Sometimes it’s just something that happens, like you have something to drink and you just feel this sudden attraction for someone and they feel this attraction for you and it just happens and it ends after that.” Without alcohol as a social lubricant, it is unlikely that college students would be able to signal interest in a hookup and deal with the potential for rejection inherent to this script. This “need for alcohol” may account for the increasing role that “partying” has played in the social lives of college students over the past several decades.31 Thus, alcohol use and alcohol-centered events (e.g., campus parties) play a critical role in making hookup encounters possible.

Another difference between hooking up and dating is that the timing and meaning of sexual activity has changed. When the dating script dominated campus life, college men and women went on dates first and then, in some cases, became sexually intimate with each other. Through dating, couples could get to know each other better or build a relationship by spending time together as well as facilitate potential sexual interaction.32 College men used to ask women to go on dates with the hope that something sexual, such as necking or petting, might happen at the end of the date. In the hooking-up era, this sexual norm is reversed. College students, following the hookup script, become sexual 48

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first and then
maybe
go on a date someday. In fact, going on a traditional style date is likely to happen only if the two partners progress to the point of deciding to become an exclusive couple (i.e., boyfriend/girlfriend), as reflected in Lee, Marie, and Jack’s responses.

KB
: Would you say that students go on dates? What do you see around you? What is the most common?

Lee
: Most common is just hooking up. I don’t really see people go out on dates that often, unless they are [already] in a relationship. [Freshman, Faith University]

Marie
: Most people I know, just meet people by meeting them out at a bar and hooking up and then
from there
if somebody is interested, then they might see you out more [and something further might happen with them], I don’t think anybody really goes on dates unless they are [already] in a serious relationship and they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, then they might be like: “Oh, do you want to go out to dinner?” But, that’s about it. [Emphasis by interviewee] [Senior, State University]

KB
: Would you say that students date or they go on dates?

Jack
: [Pauses] Some. Like the ones that have gotten into serious relationships, yes. They’ll go out to dinner . . . but everyone else it’s just: “I’ll meet you at this party” or “I’ll meet you at this bar.” [Sophomore, Faith University]