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At a time when teens are engaging in much more unusual (certainly more headline-grabbing) behavior, it was slightly perplexing to see an Op-Ed piece in the Times on the phenomenon of hooking up, otherwise known in the piece as “The Demise of Dating” (reg. required) among young people. For Ypulse readers, or anyone familiar with Gen Y for that matter, Charles M. Blow’s commentary on the trend of high school and college students forgoing formal courtships for less committal sexual encounters (at least, in the getting-to-know you stage of dating) will seem neither revelatory nor accurate. Frankly, from the way he discusses the subject of teens and twentysomethings, it seems like Blow (who appears from his pic to be beyond twentysomething) has had no contact with either demo for quite some time.

While not a scare piece per se — Blow did provide research suggesting that teens are actually having less sex and not hooking up with strangers  — I find this type of reporting dangerous nonetheless. What’s the point really? Neither by nor for parents or a professional in the youth space, the article just seems like a platform for badmouthing the younger generation for getting it wrong somehow and giving its author the chance to wag his finger accordingly. Rather than going directly to the source, Blow chooses to make his point by paraphrasing a professor who has studied hooking up among college students. Note that Blow doesn’t even differentiate between teens and college students. Now, if said professor had written the piece herself that would have been a different story. I’m sure she would have done a much better job of assessing the “way things are” than:

It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.

This idea of absolutes – the opposite of what he remembers, the old vs. new model – is troubling because it implies that the value system formerly assigned to dating has also been inverted. Not that things haven’t shifted – while dating now may not be the same expressway to marriage/domesticity that it used to be, love and committed relationships are still on the horizon. It also suggests that we, the young people, are a homogeneous group that have somehow come to a consensus on how to date — when I think back to high school yes, there were a decent amount of “hook ups,” but there were also crushes, flings and even some long-term relationships. Most infuriatingly of all, this limited understanding sets Blow up for coming to this contrived conclusion:

It used to be that ‘you were trained your whole life to date,’ said Ms. Bogle. ‘Now we’ve lost that ability — the ability to just ask someone out and get to know them.’ Now that’s sad.

Setting aside the absurd notion that it’s somehow less sad to spend your “whole life” learning how to search for another person rather than focusing on your own individual achievements, Blow’s suggestion that something has been lost in the process strikes me as especially ridiculous and narrow-minded. It just seems like he’s asking all the wrong questions. Furthermore, he’s asking them a couple decades too late.

So, what are the right questions to be asking right now about teen dating? Take a look at the post Anastasia wrote on the subject a couple months back. Rather than pointing at what’s been lost or forgotten about love and dating, she points to new behavior patterns and asks instead how dating has evolved, redefining the traditional concepts in light of their modern context. Extinction vs. evolution. Hmm… what seems more likely?

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Categorized under: Collegians, Teens

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