Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus Kathleen Bogle (general ebook reader .txt) 📖

that, either. But like, um, I made it mid-June. That’s when I have my own personal [anniversary] just to keep track. [Laughs] So, about mid-June going into junior year.

KB: So what changed in June?

Adrienne: Um, basically I’d come up [to visit him during the summer and] we had like a really fun time and I really liked him and he acted like he liked me. But he’s always like, he kind of did this like pull away thing. . . . But, I was like: “Look I’m really, I’m really starting to like you and I really just don’t want to get hurt. Like you tell me yes or you tell me no.” He’s like: “Oh, of course, you know, I really like you.” And then we kind of made it I guess official. So then I started, I kept coming up on the weekends [to visit him over the summer break]. . . . So we hung out.

In the case of Adrienne, “the talk” worked; however, many women were not as successful with this strategy, as is evident in the following exchange with Patrick, a junior at Faith University.

KB: If you could have anything you wanted going on in terms of the opposite sex, what would be your ideal situation?

Patrick: I think I would want a girlfriend, I think I would want to be in a relationship, but I’m like really sociable. So, when I was almost in a relationship, the girl [I was hooking up with] was upset because I would always be talking to other girls. So basically I would want somebody who would realize that I would want to be with one person but I would still like, like talking and hanging out and being close friends with other girls.

KB: Okay, so tell me about that girl that had a problem with it.

How did you meet her and how did things evolve?

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Patrick: We met first semester sophomore year and like we hooked up a couple times like we really never talked about a relationship until she brought it up the one time. And I’m like:

“Welll. . . yeah we could . . . like I’m not saying like I don’t want to start dating and seeing you exclusively but it would be nice to like . . . maybe just see what it’s like.” And then when I would see her at parties [and] I would be talking to other girls and she would be all upset. I’m like: “Well, you know if that’s going to get you upset, something small, just me talking to other girls, I mean I don’t think we would be able to work this out.” [But hooking up with her has] gone on. Like I still talk to her now and we stilll. . . hook up. But, I think she realizes that if we started seeing each other exclusively that I would still be talking to other girls and like being sociable to them. I wouldn’t hook up with them but I just think that she . . .

KB: She gets jealous?

Patrick: I guess, yeah.

KB: But it’s been two years now that you guys have been hooking up off and on?

Patrick: Yeah.

KB: But you have freedom to hook up with someone else if you want to?

Patrick: Yeah.

KB: And she does?

Patrick: Yeah.

KB: And do you both take advantage of that freedom?

Patrick: Yes.

KB: Typically if people hook up with people repeatedly, would they talk on the phone in between or do they usually just run into them when they’re out?

Patrick: I would say [they] run into them when they’re out. That’s when they’re just hooking up. When it becomes more serious I would say they talk to each other on the phone.

KB: Okay, so what about you [and the girl you have been hooking up with for the past two years]? What do you do mostly?

Patrick: I haven’t talked to her on the phone at all. I talk to her like on IM [instant message] every once and a while. But like I don’t like call her up and say: “Hey what’s going on?” I don’t.

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KB: Okay, so you just see her in the course of things?

Patrick: Hmmm-hmm [yes].

Like Adrienne and the woman Patrick refers to, many women indicated that they either want boyfriends or at least “something” beyond hooking up. Women who were able to find boyfriends could avoid hooking up altogether by being in an exclusive relationship (where hooking up with someone else would be considered cheating). However, for most women, boyfriends are not easy to come by during college.22 Generally, college men resist committing to an exclusive relationship in favor of remaining free to hook up with other partners.

For women who were unable to find men who were willing to be exclusively committed to them, there were other avenues they could pursue that would help protect them from the negative labels they might get from too much hooking up. A “friends with benefits” arrangement was one way to avoid acquiring “too many” new hookup partners.23 A friend with benefits refers to a man or woman who has someone of the opposite sex with whom he or she has sex on some level; however, they are not in an exclusive romantic relationship with that person. Friends with benefits are defined from the outset as “just friends”; the twist is that they are friends who are attracted enough to each other to want to engage in some version of a sexual relationship.24

Friends with benefits is not a step toward a romantic relationship and this is agreed upon in advance. Gloria, a freshman at State University, talked about her friend