Teens Hooked on Hooking-Up

Hooking-up

It's sweeping the globe, taking the teenage culture by storm. That's right, it's the 'random hook-up', now common practice among the young (and young-at-heart), of increasingly younger and younger ages. But what exactly is the deal? As is common with many new 'fads', the hook-up is yet to be socially bound by a set of concrete rules, determining exactly what is and isn't alright. Until those rules rock up, the edges are blurry and many a teen accidentaly slips over the line, moving from the ok-zone to somewhere much more unplesant; perhaps the zone-of-the-slut? Or just to the zone-of-ridicule? Or somewhere inbetween?

We all know the drill; you go to a party, have a 'little' too much to drink (or at least pretend that we did) and slide up alongside that guy you've had your eye on since you walked past the bouncer. Five minutes later, you're kissing in a corner - or in the middle of the room, for those with a little less dignity - and at the end of the night you go your separate ways. And that's that. There's an unspoken agreement that nothing HAS to happen now, although there is still room for more of the same at the next party...

Well, that's all well and good in theory, but what about the finer points? What happens to the girl who wanted more? Do the girls over-analyse completely, in a way that the guys never even begin to? And where exactly is the line between casual fun and being a skank? There's no real answer to these questions (yet) but i'm going to give it a go...

Going into the hook-up with a guy you really like is always dangerous territory. I think that it's fairly safe to assume that the guy is going to treat the 'event' much more lightly, as a random, one-off, no strings attatched. So the girl has a few choices here; one- she can forget it. Just leave the random hook-up be and work towards the more... substantial... relationship thing; two- she can figure that something is better than nothing and go the whole 100, knowing that it's all she might get, but willing to deal; or 3- (and this is the tricky one) she can go for the pash with hopes of something happening AFTER the night is over...

...which leads me to the question of the difference in mind-set between girls and guys. On the one hand you have the majority of guys who, after hooking-up, are pleased with themselves for landing a chick, thinking that they've scored some fun with no strings attatched... quite the male dream, pretty much. On the other hand, you've got the girls... the (smart?) ones who took option one or two and just have to deal with what they've got and that poor girl who took option three... she's going to be obsessively trying to figure out whether or not something is going to happen, deliberating over whether or not to text him or wait (hope) for him to text her, begging her friends to see what they can find out... only to get her hopes dashed when she finds out that he didn't realise it was a big deal and wasn't planning on taking it any further... ok, those girls, you have 100% of my sympathy (don't worry, i'd probably do the same as you). Unfortunately, my advice won't be too well-received, nor easy to carry out; you've just got to let it go and move on... find some guy with enough brains to want to hang onto a good thing!! Corny, but true. And you never know, your guy might be the one who was different and wanted the 'after' part, too! In that case, good on you, he's a keeper!!

As for how many hook-ups is too many, i've got to say that, yes, i think there is a limit, but yea, it is variable. I guess it depends on where you are/who the guys are/how often you hit up more than one guy in a night/how much you or he has had to drink... on the whole though, i think that more that two (or three... for those of you that i know had a little too much to drink at a certain formal :P) is probably too many on most occasions... nobody wants a bad reputation now, do they. Well, at least i wouldn't think so! I guess moderation is the key. Sure, go for five guys in one night if you want! But if you do that every weekend then maybe there might be a problem... who knows! This is just my opinion after all :P

Anyhoo, i think that's it for me on this subject, at least for now :P Who knows? Maybe something'll change my views (no, i don't have my fingers crossed here in the slightest...)
Bye for now!
Annie