Before we came to college we were all filled with expectations. Sure, social life was a priority, but none of us really came to Columbia with the sole desire of hooking up. We’re lionesses but we’re not constantly on the prowl! Besides, in addition to adjusting to the ungodly length of Lit Hum reading assignments, the constant knocking of elbows with the other people you share space with, and the groddy living conditions, it’s hard to worry about hooking up.
Nonetheless, it happens. With 51% of undergraduates being male and 49% female, the ratio just awakens the hormones. We can’t blame ourselves for wanting to hook up, but we should make sure that we do so in a manner that is not emotionally detrimental.
First, there’s the random hook-up. These arise in a moment of intense lust. They’re usually quick to happen and just as quickly forgotten. When you meet someone at Cannon’s and the lighting’s just gentle enough to make the final decision for you to lead someone back to your dorm in Carman, that’s as random as a roll of dice. These are risky because at times, we think we can handle it. Shut off our brains and our hearts and cater only to our physical needs. But for some of us, it just isn’t possible to separate physicality and emotionality and we are swept into a whirlwind of stress and feelings of confusion and devaluation.
Then there’s the backup hook-up. You know each other in the dark, the outlines of each other’s faces, and talk to one another mostly in hushed tones. That’s the one you call when you figure that instead of heading to Koronets and eating mindless calories when the night’s over, you should burn some calories in a more productive way, to say the least.
And lastly, there’s the hook-up that is really a relationship in disguise. Someone (or both individuals) are afraid to admit they feel a little bit more or they don’t want to paste on that label. In this situation you’re stressed because you don’t know how to keep going with this uncertainty, and the lack of a name.
No matter what category these fall into, they all have the ability to send us trudging down the road to Stress-Ville, population: tons of billions of college girls everywhere who feel your struggle. We become stressed because with this newfound freedom comes much temptation. There is the temptation to live recklessly without abandon because hey, most of us never got to do that before. There’s the temptation to take advantage of the freedom to leave your dorm whenever you please and meet up with someone at 3 AM. There’s that moment when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror as you run to go to their dorm and can’t even recognize the girl who you see.
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Hooking-up is a precarious balance between discovering who we are and what we want from another person, while making sure that we don’t want to abandon our morals, depending on what those are. In the back of our minds, some of us still hear the voices of all the people at home telling us to “Do this” and “You better not do that!” when we got to college and now, we finally are here. So what do we do? How do we minimize the emotional backlash of these physical decisions?
I think the first key is making sure that you know why you’re hooking up with the people that you are. Are you hooking up with that person because you’re bored? Because you’re trying to fill some void of something else you feel that you’re missing during this transitional period? Because you need some type of validation you never realized you did before? Or because they’re just freaking cute and damn it, you just want to? I think taking the time to reflect on why you make the decision to hook up with a certain person and reflecting on your motives can really shed light on whether or not it is a positive decision. Because one of the worst feelings is waking up and feeling devalued, unsure, or disgusted (and hungover on top of it all). In addition, you should make sure you’re comfortable with the situation.. Is it on your terms or are you feeling pressured? And if you’re not comfortable, vocalize.
Stick 1,415 kids in neighboring buildings with overpowering hormones and without parents, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for floorcest, teamcest, or “You’re in my UWriting class and I’m just in the mood to cest-cest”. What I think we need to be mindful of is the emotional repercussions of hooking up. We’re in this transitional phase where emotions are intensified, we are re-evaluating who we are, who we want to be and what we want to gain from our college experiences. And this all occurs without the same proximity of our prior support systems.
This is why I think that hooking up should be a complement to college life but it shouldn’t BE life. Keep yourself sane: do some yoga, get some endorphins, maybe read a few pages of a book not on the Lit Hum syllabus. Make it so that it does not overwhelm your life or change how you view yourself as a person. Minimize the negatives, and maximize the positives. But in case all fails and you find yourself in the situation where you regret or you question, grab a few of your closest friends and talk it out over some hot bubble tea from Cafe East. Soon, you’ll be feeling better and you won’t know what to attribute it to: the tapioca rush, the great company, or the fact that you’re at one of the best universities in one of the greatest cities in the world, figuring out how to make it—just like everybody else.