Another Wednesday night, another wacky costume theme, and another opportunity to talk to last weekend’s hookup. As you jump to the beat of “Take Me Home” on a strobe-light-lit elevated surface, you look across the sweaty, beer-clad mass of bodies jamming on the dance floor and spot your guy. It’s the perfect opportunity to make your move – after all, he was the one who texted you earlier that night to stop by his downtown house, Gateway, or dorm room, so he must be interested in spending time with you, right? But when your eyes meet his from across the room, you take a hesitant step backwards as you suddenly realize that you don’t know what to say to this person in person. While it was so easy to shoot them a “see you out” text a few hours before, now the thought of talking face-to-face with last weekend’s hookup makes you nauseous, so you leave the throbbing pulse of the party for a date with the Flying Bison.
This sticky yet all-too familiar situation is an immediate consequence of the hookup culture at Bucknell. Our campus climate, combined with the omnipresence of technology, facilitates an environment where interpersonal conversation is no longer the norm. Some blame the texting double standard – that is, if a guy texts a girl, he’s definitely interested, whereas if a girl texts a guy, she’s viewed as desperate – for our lack of interpersonal connection. But from a collegiette perspective, this toxic product of the hookup culture extends far beyond modern chivalry and gender dynamics.
A certain condition – a text trap – blossoms among men and women who participate in the hookup culture. Instead of confronting our hookups face-to-face, we hide behind our cellphones. Technology gives us the accessibility to over analyze every sentence, word, and letter we tap out on our iMessage screens before we hit “send.” We are granted the time and space to decide whether to text our hookup “Hey” or “Heyyy.” And when we get an “are you out?” reply, we obsess over it, questioning whether or not our relationship is flowing towards an “exclusive” label or if it’s just another booty call.
In this way, the text trap has escalated into a game at Bucknell, where our current (or past) hookups are constantly on our radars. We maneuver around his or her computer desks on the first floor of the library, we avoid eye contact at all costs in line at the mailroom, and as he or she saunters towards us on the Quad, we immediately pivot-step in the other direction. We avoid our faux flings at all costs, praying the inevitable sober run-in doesn’t happen anytime soon.
Alcohol at off-campus social events further complicates the notion of the faux romance. Under the influence of kegs and gin buckets, we become fearless, confident, and bolder versions of ourselves. The ego-boost alcohol gives us allows us to talk to anyone at anytime, without the awkward, anxious luggage sober conversation drags around. For this reason, the same sloppy couple you saw plastered up against the wall every Wednesday night can’t make eye contact in their 8 a.m. bio lecture on Thursday morning.
Under the influence of alcohol and intoxicated text messages, we are instantly gratified by temporary intimacy and faux romance. Our woozy subconscious points us in a direction where we feel most invincible, as demonstrated by our midnight text conversations:
You: “Heyr r u outy?” (Translation: “Hey are you out?”)Hookup: “Yehhh come ovri want 2 seyouu” (Translation: “Yeah, come over, I want to see you.”)You: “Okkkkkkcch” (Translation: “Okay, cool.”)
In our impaired states of mind and inabilities to text coherently, going out nights quickly morph into drunken date nights, and suddenly physical hookups spark romantic feelings. Beyond our sloppy biweekly encounters, we fail to learn what this person is like, besides the fact that they smell of stale beer and unwashed bed linens. Of course, this is all old news to veterans of the going out scene at Bucknell.
In 2008, Jamie Foxx blamed it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. In 2014, we’re adding to that list with our own rendition of “Blame It (On the Text).” Inebriated text messaging serves as much of an excuse as it is a form of incoherent chitchat. How many times, after a few glasses of wine, have you texted your campus crush to go to formals with you? And how many times have you texted the cutie in your chem. class to “meet up” later at the bar? Although we hate to admit it, we often use texting and alcohol to rationalize our drunken faux pas, and this further curbs our capabilities of sober interaction.
At Bucknell, we’re often told that we’re not doing college right unless we’re free, fun, sexy, and single. And so, to fit this stigma, we pretend to enjoy the casual anonymity of the sex scene. While some of us use texting as a means to engage in a normal, sober conversation with last night’s make out, most of us teeter along the fine line of only texting when we’re drunk, allowing us to evade the difficult possibility of talking soberly and getting to know one another on a personal level.
Like the common cold, the text trap has no known cures. Let’s face it: texting, hooking up, and the general air of sexual freedom fostered by our student body allows us to be both adventurous and trapped within the boundaries of our campus. We yearn to fulfill our appetites for noncommittal sex and romantic relationships. But in this era of technological predominance, one thing’s for certain: We can’t always have our make outs and text them, too.