Hooking Up Vs Dating

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ When it comes to the college life, many people either stick to one of the two rather cliche options on campus. You can choose to go the more conservative route and stick with one person where all your love and affection is directed towards one person and one person exclusively. This is considered dating and it comes with a label. Usually when two people choose to date, it is something that nowadays is publicized through social media. Since Facebook plays a huge role in society, when someone decides to date someone, it is usually updated with a relationship status change, indicating that you are now officially tied down. On the other hand, you have hooking up. Basically this is the direction where you choose to have affection and contact with multiple people and don't settle down. Although it seems like the more promiscuous way to go, it is actually pretty normal in college life. I am saying this because I, as a college student, have many friends that choose to go this direction. Surprisingly after doing research, this doesn’t seem to be the case with the majority of people in society. A senior news editor for Psych Central recently posted an article examining the exact difference between the two and what is preferred by each gender. Carolyn Bradshaw from James Madison University studied exactly what motivates men and women to either hook up or date. They asked each gender what they considered the risks and benefits to both dating and hooking up and after both were finished with the survey, the results were pretty clear. Both genders preferred traditional dating to the hooking up method with more women supporting this theory than men. In contrast, the men indicated that they have had almost double the amount of hookups then first dates. When the survey was completed, there were some important things to notice. First of all, women clearly want to have a relationship more than men want to, but they fear that their partner will not truly be in love with them like they think they are. Men on the other hand want to be independent and fear the fact the women will choose to be emotionally attached after hooking up. In conclusion, what I really wanted to show here was the true difference that both genders see in the definitions of hooking up and being in an actual relationship with your significant other.

Sources: Picture: http://www.catholicmatch.com/institute/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/dating-e1374152161978-770x513.jpg Site: Nauert, R. (2010). Hooking Up vs. Dating. Psych Central. Retrieved on January 31, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/08/hooking-up-vs-dating/12683.html