Behind Closed Doors: Can a hook up lead to a relationship, or is it a dead end?

So, I really wanted to write an article about being a whore, like good old Gavin did, but then I remembered I’m not a whore in the sexual sense. I’m a whore for holding hands and cuddling.

Like, yeah. I love getting laid. Women are amazing. And hooking up has been pretty fun. But I’ve noticed that I really like the holding hands of it and the deep conversations that happen in the late hours of the night.

Maybe I’m just one of those stereotypical emotional lesbians? Or maybe it’s just me and stereotypes aren’t real and I just can’t do hookups?

Which really sucks because again, I love having sex. It feels like I’m forced to sit on the sidelines while everyone else can seemingly hook up without any emotional attachment or repercussions, and somehow, even if there’s the slightest bit of emotional attachment, I end up being emotionally attached to whoever I’ve hooked up with.

I just want to lay out my plaid blue and white Target brand picnic blanket underneath that weeping willow tree and run my fingers through a pretty girl’s hair and maybe listen to some soft music and maybe even, I don’t know … kiss? Is that too crazy?

It’s a little too sappy, I think, but is it crazy? Is being in a sweet relationship crazy?

I get hook-up culture, because we’re young and horny and there are so many options out there. We have our entire lives to be in real relationships and should embrace being single now. But I didn’t date in high school. I didn’t really know I was gay in high school, and when I came to college, I wanted to catch up on what my heterosexual peers had been doing for years — dating, hooking up, everything in between.

Now that I see other gay people around me in happy relationships, I want that. Because in high school I would see a guy and a girl hold hands or kiss or do something romantic and I never wanted that. But I’ll see two girls around campus doing the same thing, and I realize how much I want that.

Hook-up culture helps, because it gives me the physical attributes of a relationship without any commitment, but then sometimes I think I want the commitment.

Hook-up culture makes me more confused than ever, because it feels like everyone participates in it, and it makes me feel like I should want it, but I don’t think I do. I think I want a relationship, but that scares me because I’m so young. And stupid. And bad at talking to girls.

Plus, it feels like it’s impossible to develop an actual relationship in the midst of hook-up culture, because it’s almost taboo to develop a relationship from hookups, and, simultaneously, if you develop a relationship outside of hook-up culture, it’s looked at as out of the norm. At least in my experience, it seems that way. It’s hard to determine where the line between hooking up and dating ends up being.

I have known people who have had successful relationships made out of hookups and people with broken hearts from hookups.

In all honesty, hook-up culture is meeting someone at a party or on a dating app or at a bar and bringing them home. Sometimes it’s defined as dating, and sometimes it’s hooking up. There are smaller nuances that go along with the defining factors, but it’s confusing.

I tend to get all romantic and want to lay under the weeping willow tree again, but it’s so hard to do that because everyone wants to hook up.

How long does hook-up culture last? I’m tired of seeing girls I’ve dated for a short time or hooked up with around campus, because it’s such an awkward interaction. If there was an end date to hook-up culture, maybe I could feel better about hooking up? If that makes any sense at all. It just feels like life is slipping away and I am just wasting it, even though I’m so young and have so much time.

I really think the problem is with communication. My most successful relationships or hookups have been a result of proper communication, while my most disastrous are because either me or my partner lacks in communication skills.

One of us might get our feelings hurt, and that’s not what hookups are about. Hookups are about hanky panky in a preferably — for everyone on campus’ sake — private place between two consenting adults.

However, there’s so much negativity that comes from them.

I’m absolutely not reprimanding anyone who participates in hook-up culture, because it may work for you or be what you want. From my personal experience, it sucks.

I just want that willow tree imagery, but it feels like I’m getting the physicality of what I want while ruining what could potentially turn into good relationships with really great girls.

Oh well.

I’m probably going to continue being dumb.

Veronica M. is a Flat Hat Behind Closed Doors columnist who has a Venus in Taurus and that apparently explains this entire article.

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