Trust issues, commitment issues, social media, peer pressure, ect. These are all reasons that have contributed to the well known “hookup culture” with high school and college students. 

The Urban Dictionary defines hookup culture, as “The era that began in the early 1990s and has since prevailed on college campuses and elsewhere when hooking up has replaced traditional dating as the preferred method of heterosexual liaison.” (2011) Though this defenition is pretty accurate, in the past years, kids have begun to change the meaning. 

Nowadays, people don’t just want to hookup with one another because they’re not interested in dating, but because there’s too many factors in which they cannot date. For example, being interested in someone who’s already taken, or not feeling enough of a connection with someone to date them. So with that, comes hooking up. 

Though kids hook up with each other for several reasons, a lot of them are based on the wrong reasons. Hooking up with a guy to make another guy jealous, hooking up with a girl’s best friend because the girl cheated, or even hooking up with an ex that you know you will regret the next day. Cheating, lying, and manipulating our partners is what builds a disconnect in a relationship. People are tired of having to constantly worry if their partner is talking to other people, so to make it easier for them, they decide they just want to hook up with someone to not have to worry about the feelings part.

However, most of the time this doesn’t even work. Eventually, if you hook up with someone you’re potentially interested in, you’re going to catch feelings.

I believe that no one chooses to hook up with people over being in a relationship. But I do believe if you’ve been wronged enough times in your past relationships, that it can lead someone to feel a sense of numbness when it comes to feelings.