If you are between the ages of 17 and 25, you most likely have noticed that our version of dating is nothing like the version of dating that our parents and grandparents speak of. We do not call each other anymore, real dates that include getting dressed up and going somewhere have become obsolete, and more people are looking for Mr./Ms. Right Now rather that Mr./Ms. Right. I’m talking about hookup culture, and we all know how it works. You meet someone at a party, exchange numbers, hang out maybe once, and then crawl into bed with him or her. Flowing a series of awkward text messages after that affair, you both move on to the next one.

This way of interacting with the opposite sex encourages men and women to hide emotions and actual feelings from one another. As a defense mechanism, we have learned to never get too attached to our person of the month, and to suppress any genuine feelings we have for someone in order to avoid looking “crazy” or “desperate.” Combine hookup culture with emotion shaming, and you have a large chunk of the population setting themselves up for romantic failure.

So I believe we can all agree that this is a problem, one that runs incredibly deep in our society and can probably be traced back to general sexism throughout time, but I digress. Underneath our hookup ways and heartless “romantic” affairs, I believe that there is a genuine concern for our love lives. I have spoken to men one-on-one about how they just want to date a nice girl, but when they are in front of their friends they objectify women and talk about their most recent conquest. In the privacy of their homes, women yearn for emotional stability and closeness in their relationships but tell men that they “obviously don’t want anything serious.”

So where is the disconnect? Why are we able to admit that we actually want to have an adult relationship to our close friends and ourselves, but not to the person that we want said relationship with?

There is an anti-hookup culture emerging, if only in the privacy of our dorm rooms and apartments. It is quiet and most often stamped out by alcohol and fear of rejection, but I believe that it is there and that it needs to be brought to the surface.

I have a challenge for all of us, let’s be the adults that we so desperately want to be treated like and be honest with our feelings. If you like someone, tell them. If you want something a little more serious than “Netflix and chill,” ask for it. Let’s all say what we’ve been thinking; hookup culture can be stopped if we only turn around and realize everyone just wants the same thing, to be truly loved.