Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus by Kathleen Bogle (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

Ideally, what would you want right now? I know you [mentioned that you] don’t want a serious relationship, but what would be your ideal for what could be going on with you in terms of guys right now?

Emily: I think that right now I would like to meet someone who, like I’m starting to want to get into a relationship . . . but I want to get to know someone and like take it a step at a time before we get into a serious relationship, like . . . hook up, talk, maybe like hang out just as friends and then get into it

[a relationship]. That would be ideal, but I don’t know what will actually happen.

KB: You said before regarding hooking up that people know that nothing will come of it. Are there ever problems where the guy and girl aren’t on the same page and one of them wanted more, I know you said you had a situation like that.

Emily: I think it happens both ways because I had that before, but even like the beginning of this year I hooked up with this kid who I liked. . . . I talked to him in the summer and he didn’t feel the same way and I was like: “Okay, fine,” you know, but I think that totally happens. But, I think people have to deal with the fact [that a hookup implies] an understanding. That is the way it is; he never made a commitment to you even though he did hook up with you. [Sophomore, Faith University]

When I asked college women what their ideal scenario would be for meeting someone and getting together, it gave them pause. It was as if an alternative to hooking up had never crossed their mind. However, M E N , WO M E N , A N D T H E S E X UA ll D O U B ll E S TA N DA R D

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most revealed that they would want something different than the typical hookup scenario. Some women said that they would prefer to meet a man and “get to know him” without the first encounter involving sexual activity. Others suggested it was better to be “friends first” with a man and get to know him that way. Some women seemed to want to turn back the clock and go on dates.

KB: What would you like to have going on? Are you happy with male/female interaction on campus or if you could dream up [something else] what it would be like?

Lynn: I wish the guys would ask girls out. . . . I don’t mind hooking up, but I know guys [who] like girls, but [they] are just too scared or something, like I don’t understand it, but they won’t ask girls out. [Sophomore, Faith University]

KB: Ideally how do you think meeting and getting together with the opposite sex should work if you could design it?

Jen: It would be very honest with no game playing. You just . . .

meet somebody, you like them, you tell them [that you like them], you have everything out on the table. I would appre-ciate that. Have somebody not go home with you that night, but call you up the next day and ask you if you want to do something. Try to think of different things to do instead of just going to the bar . . . just getting to know you before anything sexual [happens]. [Junior, State University]

College women who yearned for something different than hooking up may not have long to wait to get their wish. As the twenty-something college graduates I interviewed told me, life after college begins a new phase for sex and relationships.

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Life after College

A Return to Dating

MTV’s hit reality series, The Real World, places seven 18–24-year-olds in a house where cameras film everything they do over a four-month period. The men and women who are chosen to be on the show come from various parts of the country and are previously unknown to one another. These strangers are then thrust together, sharing everything from bedrooms to bathrooms. The seasons are fairly predictable with episodes depicting the housemates: getting drunk, developing crushes, making out, arguing, partying, and having sex. This is certainly not the real world, but it does seem a lot like the way many of the people I interviewed described college life. Millions of young men and women will never get the opportunity to be on this show, but they can choose to have that kind of experience (minus the cameras) as a resident on campus. But, inevitably, the college students who graduate each year must abandon their college campus to enter the real, real world.

Across the board, recent graduates I spoke with talked about the transition from college life as a major change in their lives. After graduation, many moved back to their parents’ homes; others moved to apartments, which they shared with friends from college. For some, leaving school meant no longer residing in the state where the college is located, and those who did remain nearby were nevertheless removed from campus. Graduation also signified the start of their postcollegiate careers. Many got their first full-time jobs and were taking on financial responsibilities for the first time. New work demands and living in a new place meant a dramatic change in the graduates’ day-to-day activities and social lives. No longer were masses of their peers around all the time. The lack of camaraderie and leisure time after college made the transition very difficult for some. Many felt their lives changed overnight, and others described the change as a process that took a few 128

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years before they felt the full impact. As Lucille, a 23-year-old alumnus of Faith University, told me, “Everybody that I have ever seen leave college and enter the real world has gone through a transition. I think that was