Cuestonian

Issue date: 10/12/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Nick Powell

Dating is a thing of the past, a distant memory of our grandparents. The generation gap has widened with the evolution of the hookup.

The definition of the hookup, widely debated, varies from meaning a casual make-out session, to casual sexual intercourse. Either way, hooking up has become the new era of dating.

But for young adults, dating and hooking up are polar opposites. When people used to date, the man would typically ask the woman out days in advance, plan an evening (typically involving a movie and/or dinner), and hope for a kiss at the end of the night.

After going on a few dates, the couple could choose to continue dating and become a couple, or they could break it off without being invested too much.

Dating involved getting to know someone first, talking and understanding the other person on an intimate level, without getting intimate.

Now, dating is virtually nonexistent. The tide has shifted towards hooking up. Everyone has heard the term, with its definition ranging, but it involves a physical encounter and lacks any real personal connection.

The physical encounter, be it making out, oral sex, or intercourse, has evolved into the new way of dating. People go out to a party or a bar, meet someone new, and by the end of the night, they've hooked up.

Now this new hookup can evolve into a relationship, but not necessarily. It can just end in nothing, which is often the case.

Whereas dating involves a lot of verbal communication, hooking up is almost all nonverbal - it is body language, eye contact, etc.

With hooking up, the physical aspect of a relationship comes first, and then it can possibly evolve into a relationship; whereas with dating, the relationship comes first and then develops physically.

Alcohol, in large part, is to thank. The social lubricant lowers inhibitions and is in abundance at parties, bars and group outings. College parties have become a cattle call, with alcohol allowing such behavior.

Dating is dead. The only people who do date are already in a committed relationship. Dating is not a way to find a partner, it is something to do after you've found one.

But what about when things fizzle out? What are you left with? When the thrill of the hookup is gone, do you really know the person? There are no clear alternatives to the hookup phenomenon that has devoured our generation, but maybe the answer is in what we abandoned so long ago: dating.

If we are far too cynical now to resort back to dating, try being friends first. If there is something to build the relationship on, the physical will just be a bonus. Our generation might just be going about this in the wrong way.

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