Opinion: Why Dating Isn’t Dead

It's Saturday morning and you're curled up in bed, nursing a mini hangover from last night's party. You cringe and moan when your cell phone buzzes on your nightstand, but you flip it open to read a text from your best friend.

"OMG! u hooked up w/ jeff last nite??"

Suddenly, you remember exactly what you did last night between drinking your third beer and your cell phone buzzing this morning. You hooked up with that guy from your history class who you've been eyeing since the first day. He walked you home (maybe) at 4AM, and then you passed out on your bed in your going-out clothes. You have no idea if you'll hook up with him again, and you didn't even exchange numbers. It will probably be awkward in class on Monday. And there goes another Friday night.

There's something of an epidemic sweeping college campuses across the country, and no, it's not swine flu (at least, not just yet). It's the "hook up," that vaguely defined phenomenon that is nearly synonymous with college life. The hook up culture has become such a normal part of the collegiate experience that, in a way, hooking up is about as integral as going to class itself. In a 2001 Independent Women's Forum study titled "Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right," 40 percent of the 1,000 women interviewed said they had experienced a hook up, with one in ten women having done so more than six times. Imagine how much greater that percentage is now, in 2011!

These days, it seems like everyone is hooking up and having a good time, so what's the big deal? Well, I don't have a problem with what others choose to do—live and let live, I say—but as a hopeless romantic, I look around me and wonder: what happened to the good ol' days of courtship?

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, even at the tender age of eighteen, but I've always held a romanticized view of relationships. Two people who like each other go out a few times, begin to date exclusively after a short while, and there you have it—a long-term relationship. Maybe it's just the model I've picked up on from my parents and those perfect TV couples, but isn't that how things ought to be? I think so at least.

I understand that young people have their reasons for choosing numerous hook ups over a relationship. In a recent poll conducted on NPR's website, 21 percent of responders categorized hooking up as "fun"; another 15 percent saw anonymous hook ups as "no big deal." The generation that pioneered the hook up wants to have a good time with no strings attached, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as the parties involved are being safe.

But I can't be the only one out there who wants something more...romantic. Right?

Going back to the Independent Women's Forum study, 63 percent of the women interviewed said they would like to meet their future spouse in college. This must mean that the idea of a steady relationship isn't completely antiquated, even if pins and the two-straws-and-a-milkshake kind of dating are. The idea of love certainly isn't outdated; our culture reflects a desire for it, whether it is in the television shows we obsess over or the countless dating websites that promise to find you your soul mate. I'm not the only person out there who sees a loving, monogamous relationship as an ideal to strive for, it seems.

I'm sure that there are college students out there who are on the lookout for Mr. (or Ms.) Right, even in the midst of the hook up culture. Even in their early twenties, people begin to look for someone with whom they can eventually settle down and start a family. Dating in college is alive and (somewhat) well, even if dates are hard to come by on some campuses. After all, without dating, what would be left for us melodramatic teens and twenty-somethings to feel angst over? And that's why I begin my freshman year confident in the fact that dating isn't dead.