Cronin Discusses Hooking-Up and Dating

The Cushing 001 lecture hall was packed full this past Tuesday as students came to hear the St. Thomas More Society sponsored talk titled “Sex and the Single Student” by professor Kerry Cronin of the philosophy department.

Cronin began her talk by explaining why the topic of dating was important to her. She recalled a discussion with students after a panel talk at Boston College. They were seniors, so she began to ask them about how they were dealing with relationships since they were about to graduate.

I said, “What about boyfriends and girlfriends, what about relationships [...] what are you going to do?” There was silence. No talking. I thought, “Did I ask a strange question?” And here’s the thing: of the eight students I was with, all of them gorgeous, on the inside and out: beautiful people, high powered, smart, bright, extroverted [...] only one had gone on a date at Boston College. And I thought, “What the heck is going on here [...] how can that be?” And they said, “Oh Kerry, we don’t do that stuff anymore. We don’t date. We just hook up.”

She began studying the “hook-up culture” and talking to students about relationships on campus. She said she’s heard, on campuses around the country, many of the same things about hooking-up.

Professor Kerry Cronin selects the winner of one of several gift certificates to use on a date

Prof. Cronin selects the winner of a gift certificate to use on a date

Cronin defined hooking up as “a physical sexual interaction with no perceived intention of a relationship.” She emphasized that the word perceived, because she found that most students rarely know what the other person perceives as the intention of the hook-up, and many aren’t even sure of their own intentions.

She categorized hook-ups into different categories. “I had five, but when I got to Fairfield University in September they added a sixth. And when I got to Assumption they tried to add a seventh,” said Cronin.

Pure hook-up – “Literally, bumping into somebody at a party,” these are one-time random events.
Regular hook-up – Hooking up with the same person on a regular basis
Friends with benefits – As a philosophy professor, Cronin explained that “This doesn’t fit into any of Aristotle’s categories on friendship.”
Hookup with hope – Believing the hook-up could turn into something romantic. It’s “tough, because you never know who’s hoping.”
Mistake hook-up – The hook-up you regret immediately afterward

Cronin continued by explaining what she considered the ten unspoken rules of the hook-up culture.

Be chill – “The golden rule of hook-up culture”
Go to a party – “Hook-ups don’t often happen after class”
Drink - Equal amounts as the person with whom you want to hook-up.
Do not talk about the hook-up while it is happening
Don’t act interested about anything in the person’s room
Know where your shoes are at all times - “Nobody wants the awkward moment [of] ‘Where are my shoes?’”
Please don’t stay over
Learn to text – “No one calls anymore and leaving voice mail messages is so rude.”
It’s a good story – “It’s not really fun until you’ve told it several times”
Don’t expect anything

Having explained the types of, and rules for, hooking-up, Cronin said that for many students, this “solution” isn’t working. She said that most students say hooking-up is the casual thing to do, but asking someone for a cup of coffee is the really formal thing to do. So she decided to make it a rule in her capstone class that students ask and go out with someone on a date – or they would fail.

She said that all the students said “it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought, asking somebody, and then going on a date.”

The “dating assignment,” as she calls it, includes several rules:

Ask the person out in person – “I will allow a live phone call, but I prefer in person,” said Cronin.
The date should be within three days of when you ask – “At Boston College, if you ask someone out and then you say say ‘How about next weekend?’ [...] within three or four days that person has asked 112 of their closest friends what they all think about you and [...] all their friends are living vicariously through them [...] it completely freaks the person out and then they say no.”
Have a plan
Know what a “level 1 date” is – 60 to 90 minutes long and it has to be local
Pay - If you ask, you pay.
Learn to send and receive signals
Tell only three people.
No alcohol
No physical interaction – except, at the end, an A-frame hug is acceptable
Say “thank you.” – after the date

Cronin says her dating assignment is a way she can help solve the problem of hooking-up. It’s a problem, she says, because “I talk to students all the time and no body seems particularly happy with it.” Cronin says students tell her they “feel isolated and alone even though [they] have so many friends.” and that she hears “a lot from students about how lonely, depressed, and sad they feel.”

Cronin concluded her talk by explaining the two problems with hooking-up:

Practically speaking it doesn’t seem to be making you guys happy [and] philosophically speaking, I gotta say there’s a real problem with hooking-up. [...] Just about every student I talk to, except the occasional person with a vocation to religious life, says I want to get married and I probably want to have kids. But hook-up culture gives you all the habits that you don’t need in marriage. Hook-up culture is about detaching [...] and it forces you to pretend to drive away your own feelings, to pretend they’re not there. [...] It makes us believe sexual expression means not so much, but in fact [...] your sexual expression means everything.

Cronin fielded several questions after the talk and selected the winners, from students in attendance, of several gift certificates to restaurants which she said must be used on a date. Overall, the talk was well attended and well received, and fostered discussion on the importance of traditional dating relationships as opposed to the recent phenomenon of hooking-up.

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