Swiping people left and right: the Tinder/hook-up culture discussion

29/27 is approaching the tail-end of prime offspring-making years, so it's not really that young for marriages intended to include children, especially since I'm guessing most marriages today don't involve starting at kids immediately.

that is pretty true, but that impulse is also behind some of the worst relationship decisions I've heard from people

it depends on what you mean by "immediately," too. most people I know who have a strong impulse to have kids in that age range have gotten pregnant around two years in?

Well assuming two years before pregnancy, first kid is born close to 32/30, assuming you want more than one and not irish twins say next one is 35/33, then pretty soon after that you start getting into "high risk pregnancy" years. Science hasn't 100% caught up to this generation's idea of how long what I guess you could call young-adulthood should last.

yeah, this is a sidetrack

back on track: what is with people who strongly identify as parents or have their kids in their primary dating profile picture? I have no problem with dating women with kids, but to me dating is about discovering how someone relates to you and vice-versa, not an immediate dump of their entire identity. I guess the dating hook here is "I'm a mother?"

Maybe it's sort of a "get this out of the way up front" strategy, like just eliminate all the people who are going to bail once they find out you have kids.

So far, from experience, the status quo has been: college students are extremely busy, having sex is an impersonal affair that checks off like laundry and grocery, virginity is mocked and almost all communication are via text/FB and now Tinder. Other alternatives are very rare. There is a huge malaise right now, and perhaps it's always been the case that sex and relationships in your early twenties was a difficult affair, but don't we want to be smarter about it?

Are you a college student, VHS? I am interested in hearing more about this

I was until not very long ago, planning to go back to it for masters.

I would recommend the End of Sex by Donna Freitas, it's a rather short read and she did superb research in different types of colleges to understand how relationships work and don't work now. I don't agree with absolutely everything, but most of it I could relate with, and she makes sure everything is backed by numbers, which is solid. She doesn't discuss Tinder, it didn't exist the way it does now during the time she researched (around 2009-2012).

virginity is mocked

by whom and in what social situations?

Basically what happens in my case, and in the case of many friends and acquaintances, male and female is:

Most people have spent the past 4-5 years hooking up and very little more.
Outlier cases of married couple by their mid-20s exists, they are rare.
If you go on a date, chances are, you have no idea what you are doing. (I think I've been on my first real date at age 25, it seems to be the case for a lot of people around me to)
So if the other person has a clue about dating, it doesn't work.
So if the other person has no clue about dating, it reverts back to hooking up instinctively and usually don't go beyond.
If you are both comfortable with dating, then it still has little chance to work out because dating is a brutal experience on it's on.

I mean, what I'm bemoaning here is that having first real dating experiences are pushed back in favor of a culture of hooking up that benefits no one.

not to pry, but where are you geographically if you don't mind my asking?

maybe it's a different bunch I've run into, but the younger new hires at my workplace and our interns seemed a little more socially conservative

White upper middle class Montreal. Donna Freitas arguments is that it's worse in universities like Oberlin, where there is little else to do, at least we have a whole city to explore.

ahhhh

yeah, Montreal and the midwest US are very diff worlds for many reasons

I mean that's personal experience, but I've seen the numbers corroborate this experience from different US cities.

in what way is hooking up hardwired to never go any further

I mean dating is a shitty way to do things as a formal and agreed upon process so I'm all for alternatives and I'm wondering why this particular one is being identified as prelimited in this way

most ppl I know in relationships prob started out as a drunk hookup, structured dating not rly a thing where I'm from

actually my marriage grew out of a drunk hookup fwiw. I don't think it would have happened through tinder -- profiles wouldn't have seemed matchy enough or something. But then every encounter that leads to a marriage is so by nature unlikely that it's a pointless inquiry.

I said usually, meaning that there is instances in which serial hooking up leads to dating. At this point, the dichotomy here is dating as 'getting to know someone and yourself' vs hook up as 'not caring the least about the other person or your own feelings'.

Do you mean there aren't, like, couples? That seems hard to believe.

for sure, it seems like a less-examined culture, kind of a swapping of self-consciousness and vulnerability for what's being read as narcissism and self-esteem but don't really code that way to me

the thing you can get with a series of relationships or dating is the idea that you can open up emotionally and be vulnerable, and learn more about yourself and others, and that it doesn't necessarily have to end badly or result in bad feelings on one or both ends.

I don't think there's anything wrong with hook-ups or casual sex, but doing so in lieu of actual relationship-building or opening yourself up emotionally seems kind of stunted.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks back where he lamented he's past the point where he can think clearly to date or even consider a relationship because he's mentally stuck at the point where his mind immediately goes to sex.

dichotomy here is dating as 'getting to know someone and yourself' vs hook up as 'not caring the least about the other person or your own feelings'.

which regardless of scaremongering btwn generations still strikes me as more likely a false dichotomy as anything else.

for sure, I don't understand hook-ups as something that happens in a bubble as its presented. like, can't you just have a few at the pub and stay over and maybe have breakfast and decide later if it's going to develop into something relationship-ish

that would be considered a date. hooking up is really just having sex for the sake of sex, it's not casual sex per se. there is no communication involved in hooking up.

I meant going out as a group or just meeting someone out?

I understand now. I guess i'm really just discussing a specific form of hooking up then, one that involves completely shutting down emotionally.

i'm kinda skeptical that's possible

still trying to figure out how Treeship thinks Tinder is *only* the picture yet has gone on four or five Tinder dates!

they have like a tagline too, right and you can see mutual friends... the way i would use it was just swiping based on appearance. i'm the problem as much as tinder i guess. but yeah, what others have said, the elaborate profiles are equally problematic. what's missing in this sort of communication isn't more data

i think van horn street is on the mark about how depressing it can be to try to wade through hook up culture looking for a relationship. but the alternatives seem poor too. dating is just fucking scary: it's frightening to think about never meeting the right person and it's scary to think about sharing your life with someone and opening yourself up to pain.

i guess i want to clarify the vulnerability comment that people took issue with. i understand that the ideal is to be able to be totally open and comfortable and whatever but as a single person, each time i've done that i've ended up feeling shattered eventually. not that other people did anything wrong, necessarily, it's just the nature of the game. unlike your family, partners can abandon you. this being the case i can understand why people would want to "shut down"

no, family can also abandon you.

yes, that is true. sorry i was speaking from privilege there

general point still stands re. dating/relationships: there is no easy answer, and no matter what chances are you are going to take some serious emotional blows

i agree it's hard. on the upside i think having a support system and/or partner fail you / break your heart has the potential to make it easier.

you become more resilient. it might be an important part of life/development

zing has crashed twice instead of letting me post but I think Treeship has finally got it

nothing makes the last breakup sting less than the next one, or moving on and finding fulfillment

simon and garfunkel/ "i am a rock" solution still underrated though. i think that's still where i am rn

I thought Paul Simon was a dickhead to women

i have no idea. was referring to the narrator of that song that is meant to be ironic, where the narrator talks about being closed off and defensive and finding fulfillment in his books

so irony is underrated huh

I still don't understand whether Van Horn Street is saying that the large majority of students in his college got all the way through it without being in a romantic relationship, having someone they'd call a "boyfriend" or "girlfriend," etc. or whether he's just saying they don't go out on "dates" (i.e. two people making a scheduled arrangement to see a movie or eat at a restaurant.)

The latter seems unsurprising, the former I would actually think is weird. And the college kids I know often do have boyfriends or girlfriends.

in my world of young people i.e. the under-25s i know there's definitely much more fluidity between friendship and romance and seemingly less of a need to define relationship statuses than there is w/ people even just a few years older

^ for whatever reason, I was like that even 20 years ago before it was common. I wondered why it wasn't like that for nearly everyone else. I'm not sure what that means....

I still don't understand whether Van Horn Street is saying that the large majority of students in his college got all the way through it without being in a romantic relationship, having someone they'd call a "boyfriend" or "girlfriend," etc. or whether he's just saying they don't go out on "dates" (i.e. two people making a scheduled arrangement to see a movie or eat at a restaurant.)

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, December 15, 2014 10:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My experience is mostly the former part, but researching what was the situation for undergrad kids today (18-22 years old say) I discovered it's the latter.

blaming "hook-up culture" seems slightly off the mark to me (and i'm not convinced it's so universal either). you don't have to wade through casual sex if you don't want to, but no given way of meeting new people is going to give you an idealised long-term relationship just because you want one. awkward dead-end first dates during which you realise you have nothing in common with the person opposite you aren't going to make you feel any better than emotionless random hook-ups, give or take a hangover.

(there's really no guaranteed route to finding yourself a life partner - drunken hook-ups can certainly be one, though, i think the most stable and long-term marriage i know started with a drunken hook-up - and you probably have to accept that on some level. i don't feel that hook-up culture "benefits no one" even if it doesn't lead anywhere.)

a lot of women like tinder because you can't be bothered by dudes until you've liked them. something to think about.

Their romance operandi — hooking up and hanging out — flouts the golden rule of what makes marriages and love work: emotional vulnerability.

oh that's the goldren rule?

xp it wouldn't take much for okcupid to implement such a system as well. it can also be implemented unofficially - my gf and i only started messaging after we'd both 'liked' each other

in my world of young people i.e. the under-25s i know there's definitely much more fluidity between friendship and romance and seemingly less of a need to define relationship statuses than there is w/ people even just a few years older

― Merdeyeux, Monday, December 15, 2014 10:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think some of this might be age rather than generation, like people under 25 tend to have more of a "cool with whatever" attitude, or pretend to have one even if they don't. Getting older makes you pickier about your relationship choices and definitions. For some reason I often think of a female friend who described an internet date experience like this: "So when we went back to my apartment, he was like 'so listen, I just got out of a divorce, and I'm just not up for anything too serious right now, is that ok?' And I was like, 'you know what, no, that's not ok. I don't want this kind of thing anymore.'"

i've been thinking about this and i realized that in order to know whether i want to associate with someone, i only feel totally comfortable when i'm able to see how they treat other people. i need to observe their behavior a little bit. this is another reason it's important to meet ppl irl. it works on ilx too, but okc or dating app wouldn't really allow you to see that sort of thing.

that's pretty fair, man alive!

I've had (and friends have had) the opposite experience where you're dating someone who's going through a divorce and it's like, idk, I'm not going to be able to give you a 100% commitment because you are still married to some other person

xp man alive yeah that sounds legit, better to be honest about intention and call it off early