the opposite

I guess in order to understand today’s hook-up culture, we also have to understand the monogamous relationships on the opposite spectrum of the one night stand hook up. On my college campus in particular, there is a good number of relationships that are pretty serious. While some couples may begin their relationship with a dinner and a movie, oftentimes it seems like the relationship stems from a friendship, hooking up, and then realizing the extent of their feelings for each other. Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of ways that relationships develop on this campus, but what I’m getting at is that as soon as they develop, they usually become very serious. What I’m really looking at is the phenomenon of the on-campus marriage. These are the couples that you can pick out in the dining hall having a leisurely lunch, doing work together in the media center, or walking home together after a Saturday night out.

Recent media puts a lot of focus on the hooking up culture (and clearly, I’m putting a lot of focus on it in this blog), but we rarely hear about this serious relationship culture. And I guess I can see why this isn’t of particular interest to the media. Serious relationships aren’t a new thing, and especially not to young adults/adults. But in a society where it has become so prevalent to casually hook up, why are these people so eager to couple up? Shouldn’t we assume from the media’s opinion of our generation that we should only want to be “sowing our wild oats” now and waiting until we are older to settle down?’

I think that something that the media is missing is that many college students are in fact looking for this serious relationship that some of our peers find, but being unable to attain it ourselves, we are forced into this drunk Saturday night cycle of hooking up. I’m not saying that everyone is looking for a relationship and fall back on hooking up; some people are just looking for sexual pleasure. But a survey of many college girls (it’s not an extensive survey) I know gives me the impression that they would like to have a relationship.

So, if in my alternate universe, everyone who wanted to be in a serious monogamous relationship was in one. Would that mean that hooking up would be less of a presence than it is now? Maybe that’s a silly question, but I definitely think that it’s something worth thinking about.