Is Campus Dating Dead?

If you go to any college and ask the average college student about the campus dating scene, the most common answer you will get is, “What dating scene?”

One recent study indicated that most of today’s college students are not dating in the traditional sense. Instead they are either hooking up or in serious relationships with nothing in between.

According to author Elizabeth Marqardt, dating on college campuses is dead and has been replaced by hooking up. She pooled several students and came up with this definition of hooking up, “anything ranging from kissing to sex and hookups can occur between two people on just one occasion, or they can occur more than once between the same two people over a period of weeks or months.”

Hooking up does not exclude sex but it does automatically include it either. In other words, hooking up is almost anything that can be considered romantic or sexual outside a committed relationship. Another common term heard is a “friend with benefits.”

In the recent past there was a tried and true formula for college dating:
• You meet someone
• One of you asks the other to go somewhere
• You go out on a few formal dates
• You use some method of declaring a relationship such as getting pinned.

No more. You still need to meet someone and one of you has to ask the other to go somewhere or just hang out. After that, the old rules no longer apply. Most students will tell you that they meet potential dates in classes, student organizations, study groups, residence halls, parties and through friends.

Today’s students have a very limited amount of time to spend on any social activities. Most don’t want to put the time and emotional effort into a committed relationship while they are still in college and need to be concentrating on mapping out their future goals. Most students say that formal dating is unnecessary because they interact with so many different people that it isn’t hard to find someone you are interested in especially with co-ed education and co-ed living arrangements.

For most students, the formal date has been replaced by friendship, the one or multiple night stand and serious relationships. One college senior defined dating as, “when you are not allowed to hook up with someone else.” That sounds like a pretty good definition of a serious relationship.

With all of the new freedoms, there is a down side. Students need to be aware of sexual assault, acquaintance rape, and sexually transmitted diseases. If you use a little common sense, you can have fun and still keep yourself safe.

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