<p>Plays a role in what?</p>
<p>In the demise of dating. Are current dating patterns related to plans for having a family?</p>
<p>I’m not convinced that there is a demise of dating. The difference is in what is social acceptable to admit too. Women used to expend a lot more energy worrying about their reputations but that doesn’t mean they were significantly more chaste than women today. It’s such a complicated issue but the bottom line is that, well, there is nothing new under the sun. </p>
<p>As for your question, I always knew I would be a mother and I hoped I would be able to do it with a partner but not meeting the right guy would not have derailed my plans to parent. I was not looking to become a mother in college, so that was not part of my motivation at the time. That certainly was part of the weeding out process of dating after hooking up.</p>
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<p>That is almost verbatim what my father (born in 1912) said to me in 1970. He related that “we” [kids coming of age in the late 60s] didn’t invent sex or sexuality w/o marriage “the only difference was that we talked more about it.”</p>
<p>As the sociologist quoted above indicted, hook up sex fills the needs in the HS and college period with minimum investment when marriage and/or permenant relationship/child rearing isn’t the immediate goal and then the people revert to the dating/investigative mode after achieving the education/employment goals when marriage/children becomes the focus.</p>
<p>And as the posts relating to Scandinavia indicate, where society doesn’t treat sex and sexuality as a moral issue it actually has produced people having fewer numbers of sexual partners and more enduring marriages than in the US. In the US the song goes “good girls don’t, but I do.”</p>
<p>Many of you are ignoring the consequence of an unplanned pregnancy. My son, whom we adopted, was conceived by two college freshmen. We reminded him of that just recently and his reply…“Jeeze!” That translates into, “I’m a freshman and I’m not ready for parenthood so I better be careful.” It’s unusual, in that he has more contact with his birthfather’s family, so he’s seen a male figure taking some responsibility.</p>
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<p>In that there is a lack of desire for responsibility, that people want to delay parenthood, yes. So one way to delay getting entangled is to hook up without expectations.</p>
<p>I’m interested in the idea that dating hasn’t disappeared, but has rather moved to people in their 20s and 30s, who are interested in finding spouses.</p>
<p>One could argue from the fact that approximately half of US brides are pregnant on their wedding date that as to a significant portion of the population pregnancy drives marriage. As several posters have noted, if college age students want to avoid the responsibilities associated with parenting (and perhaps a pregnancy driven marriage) they need to take appropriate birth control precautions when having sex whether they are dating the sexual partner or hooking up. Or as other posters have mentioned, the hooking up can stop short of intercourse.</p>
<p>The need to practice effective birth control is just one reason I advocate to leave the alcohol out of the equation.</p>
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<p>As Son of Opie mentioned,
. While I think SOO is talking about women currently in medical school, dating to find a spouse does seem to come AFTER college and/or professional school if the desire is not to have to balance a committed full time relationship with school. </p>
<p>Dating’s “value” seems to be the same, it just doesn’t come into play until later since females want an education/career as much or more than finding “Prince Charming.”</p>
<p>I would like to put college girls into three different categories.</p>
<p>1.) Girls who just want to hook up and not date anyone- except if it is a guy from a top frat or whatever the school has to determine social status</p>
<p>2.) Girls who have boyfriends back home</p>
<p>3.) Girls who are so focused on their studies that they don’t want to date or hook up.</p>
<p>These categories help perpetuate the hookup system.
For instance, as a guy, I can’t find anyone who is interested in dating.
So, I feel that my only option is to get drunk and hookup with girls at bars.</p>
<p>Other people get the same message, guys and girls, so that’s a reason why the hookup system is here to stay.</p>
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<p>Either you live in a completely different world than I do (I guess I could ask my sister - she’s at the same university you are) or you’re not looking hard enough. In my world, the existence of hookups (which are commonplace, though not practiced by everyone) absolutely does not preclude relationships, or interest in relationships, and there are plenty of both men and women interested in relationships.</p>
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<p>I think this statistic is misleading. It usually is not a pregnancy-driven marriage in the sense that Sarah Palin’s daughter’s marriage will be. </p>
<p>I bet most of these couples were living together, and planning to get married eventually; possibly even decided that they wanted to have a child, and when pregnancy actually came, decided to just make it “official” to make things simpler later on. It is not considered socially unacceptable or immoral any more, at least in some social circles, so women don’t have to conceal the pregnancy (or claim later that their 8 lb baby was born 3 month premature…)</p>
<p>The above seems true to me. My D was 8 mos at our wedding and featured in or wedding pictures. I was finally getting to be rebellious </p>
<p>She will be 19 next week. I didn’t think about how I’d explain the picture to my kids at various ages, but it WAS a talking point!</p>
<p>Mondo, That is not your only option and to cast it as such is dishonest. If you don’t want to participate in hooking up, then do not do it. </p>
<p>Yes, it may take you longer to find someone who is looking for what you are but I guarentee you that right now there are young women on your campus who are wondering why they cannot find a guy who doesn’t want to participate in the “hook up” culture. </p>
<p>Living up to your own standards will often involve delaying gratification. Consider it a work out for your ethic muscles.</p>
<p>shrinkrap, In filling out her oldest child’s baby book, in answer to the question “what did you do when you found out you were pregnant?” my sister wrote, “Get married!” It’s interesting to see how people react to that. And, yes, a very good talking point!</p>
<p>Seems to me that what is being said on this thread is that there is not an actual demise of dating. </p>
<p>Some college students find value in dating and date. Others who plan on deferring spouse selection as part of deferring children and/or marriage until after advanced degrees/careers are obtained may choose to hook up, merely delaying dating.</p>
<p>Those who have observed that pregnant brides don’t necessarily mean that these women all got pregnant as part of hooking up rather than from a committed relationship probably have a valid point. By college age, a female who gets pregnant and decides not to carry to term can elect to abort so I could speculate that there aren’t a lot of “hook up” pregnancy driven marriages.</p>
<p>So, dating is not an endangered activity after all.</p>
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<p>I foresee that there may be a real issue when the male wants to date serially, thereby getting temporal sexual exclusivity and access as he “gets to know the real her,” but with a free way out when he decides to look elsewhere for the next date candidate. </p>
<p>I could see where the female college student who really wants to date as part of spouse selection finds this depressing and deplorable.</p>
<p>It may be interesting to note, my daughter told me that her friends at her sorority house all know which guys are players and if they are not into just hooking up they do avoid those guys. She said sometimes even when those guys are sincere it’s hard for them to shake the reputation. I guess it works both ways.</p>
<p>“I could see where the female college student who really wants to date as part of spouse selection finds this depressing and deplorable.”</p>
<p>They’re out there but the numbers are small from the research that I’ve read. There were a lot more of this type of female around when I went to school.</p>
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<p>I keep wondering if this is really motivated by the very grim statistics concerning divorce and the plunge into near or actual poverty that the woman often experience upon divorce. So, some forward thinking realist females are taking the hook up now, while deferring marriage until after they have their own ability to be their own safety net, approach.</p>
<p>To many males the existance of females in large(r) numbers who will hook up (i.e., the males may have the opportunity for casual sex with numerous different females) acts as a major disincentive for the 18-22 y.o. male to go through the process of dating with its claim on his time, resourses etc. </p>
<p>The date, not hook up, female college student is (as one poster commented) left to try to find males who are committed “to live up to dating standards often involving him delaying gratification [always an 18-22 y.o. male’s strongest suit]” AND is looking for a spouse while in college.</p>
<p>I think this is also somewhat a process where the males want to marry the end product of education/career first female philosophy because that female is less likely to not contribute to the income of the married couple.</p>
<p>When women thought of marriage as the ultimate prize and “held out” rather than “hooked up,” males “dated.” Seems that isn’t what many girls think or do now.</p>
<p>I wonder if most of the CC posters who have daughter don’t support the idea of “get that education and don’t get derailed by some guy while she [the daughter] is in college.”</p>
<p>I think that CC posters are generally flexible on what their kids do.</p>
<p>There are girls and guys out there from other cultural backgrounds that do place a higher emphasis on the long-term compared to current American “you can have it all now” culture. Perhaps some will even make the connection between subprime mortgages and dating.</p>
<p>Surely there must be something between “hookup” and “look for a husband”. I don’t think my D and her friends (a very conservative, but very bright and independent “clique”) would be interested in either, but in something in between.</p>