Take yourself back as little as fifteen or twenty years ago. You’re in college, and you see a girl sitting a few rows over in your Biology class. You can’t take your eyes off of her all class, and you convince yourself you’re going to ask her on a date when it lets out. As class ends, the butterflies begin to fly around in your stomach and you make your way over toward her. You ask her name and give her yours in return. After some small talk about how boring today’s lecture was, you ask her out to dinner. You have a great time, give her a kiss goodnight and go on your way. One dinner turns into several, and before you know it, you have yourself a girlfriend.

Move to present day--you see a girl sitting a few rows down from you in your biology class. You don’t spend the rest of the class thinking of how you’re going to ask her out, you spend the rest of the class ruthlessly searching for this girl on social media. You start with Facebook because it’s the easiest to search for names. You move to Instagram. Is she an Alpha Xi? I think she is. I’ll search every Alpha Xi’s Instagram pictures for the past couple weeks to see if she’s tagged in any of them. After this, you move to Twitter. If you find any of her profiles, you perform a 20-step analysis full of clouded assumptions on what her attitude is like, what she likes to drink, how many guys she could have slept with, if her family has money, what her major is, etc. If you can’t find her on social media: is this girl a loser? Is she on the grid? Is she a low-key, socially inept hippy outside of class and has sworn off any social media - something I don’t need in my life? Before class ends, you convince yourself you’re not crazy and that you’ll get the lecture notes from your buddy later.

At the pregame that night, you check the girl’s Twitter to see if she's said anything about going out. It turns out she retweeted a special going on a Joe Mamma’s, and you happen to be going there with your boys. You now have a mental note to keep an eye out for her. You do see her out that night, you’re both drunk, and your liquid courage conscience tells you to approach her and her friends. Because you stalked her earlier, you have a better advantage of talking about things she may like, etc. 

Next thing you know, it’s Friday morning, you have class in an hour, and the girl from your biology class is on your couch watching Ellen with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. This process repeats several times with a few texts exchanged in between, and before you know it, you have yourself a girlfriend

Welcome to dating in 2014.

This is the status quo for the start of relationships in college today. Think of how many times you or your friends have had a relationship start after a drunken hook up, compared to how many times it’s started by going on a date. Is this not ass backwards? Call me old fashion, but this isn’t how relationships were meant to start. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, it’s probably why so many of us end up in such shitty relationships. Remember that five-date rule? Yeah, me neither, because it doesn’t exist in today’s college world. 

In today’s world, you hook up a few times, they seem really cool, and MAYBE you hangout a handful of times, so now you’re kind of dating. That’s all great until you realize after a month, that person you hooked up with and are now dating deals drugs out of their apartment...only now you’re too emotionally attached to break it off. Welcome to your awful relationship. Now it’s affecting me, because I’m forced to see some inspirational quote on Instagram about strength and courage. 

Hooking up? I’m all for it. If you’re not looking for your Prince Charming or your future wife just yet, then it’s all well and good, go out and hook up all you want. The problem, at least with a lot of the girls I know, is that they're actually out looking for their husbands. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but not too many of you are going to find the future parent of your children while doing shots of tequila and flailing your arms to We Found Love on a Thursday night at a local bar. 

On that note, it’s about time we stopped blacking out when we know we’re going to see a certain girl or guy at the bar just to give you some liquid courage. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to go get hammered, but when fear of rejection of your insecurities is the driving force behind it, then it’s a problem. Too often, people (especially guys) go out and black out to hide behind their insecurities and inhibitions when it comes to asking someone out. Why, because they fear rejection? That’s a poor excuse. Be a man and step up to the plate. I think you’ll find that girls will notice and appreciate what you’re doing, and you’ll end up getting a better reaction than you think more times than not. 

Don’t get me wrong - this isn’t purely the guy’s fault. Girls can share in this blame as well. Many guys often feel cornered into getting a girl this way because in this day in age, approaching a girl in person for the first time seems somewhat creepy and like a thing of the past. Girls claim to want men that act this way like the ones in the movies they see, but quite often when a girl is faced with this in real life, they will write these guys off as awkward, thirsty, or just simply think they’re too good to give the guy the time of day. Often, a female’s insecurities may stop them from giving the guy a chance. 

A one-night hook up has been the spark plug behind almost all of the college relationships I have been around. And as you might expect, a large majority haven’t worked out. I’m definitely not saying hooking up is a bad thing, but trim the expectations for afterwards. My advice is just be cautious taking it from a casual hookup to a relationship, because girls, you crying outside Jimmy Johns at 2a.m. three nights a week when you see Dave making out with some random girl is just annoying for everyone. And guys, next time you see that girl sitting a few rows down and you find yourself wondering if she has dinner plans, find some courage and try the “old fashion way” – ask her out to dinner. Unless you’re creepy and weird…then maybe don’t. 

Photo courtesy of college-social.com.