By Anna Trevathan, Alumni Managing Editor
**Trigger Warning: This essay contains content about sexual and physical assault including graphic descriptions. Reader discretion is strongly advised.**
I was not planning on going out that night. My Sunday evening consisted of spending the night with a group of girlfriends in my cramped apartment, watching silly movies from 2010, talking about every aspect of our lives, and putting in discount codes to order Chinese food. Even the dumplings seemed to be bonding as we fought for the last drop of sauce. It was finally warming up outside – warm enough to wear a dress. I never wear dresses. My thighs chafing together and creating a sand pit of dead inflamed skin. It’s a nightmare.
Hookup culture is the only way I know to meet people in this generation. Dating apps and shitty Snapchat additives. I hate it. Truly, if I could choose, I would be the type of girl who only dates decent men. I want the guy who my mom would like, the one that shows up at my front door with roses and holds open the car door for me. Instead, I accept the 99+ matches on Tinder. I accept the one match for every ten guys that I swipe on. And of course, later unmatching with them. I mean who flexes about the deer that they shot in the pictures that represent themselves? Is it too much to ask for a guy who reads? I’m not asking for a damn Nicholas Sparks movie but I would like something more than this.
I wore a red dress. The color is important. Why bother talking about wearing some dress, when it was red? I always get told I look good in red. I’m not saying that in a cocky I-look-good-because-I’m-hot-and-all-these-men-want-me way, but in a genuine I’m-brown-and-I-have-warm-undertones kind of way. It’s my favorite color. The shade that my first lipstick color was, specifically. It had these little straps that I had to retie every three hours. Partially my fault, because I am one of those people that talk with my hands in every sentence I speak. The dress was covered in the cutest little white flowers – that’s what I was wearing the night I met him.
This is what I settle for. For dating apps and shitty dates and worse hookups. How else do we meet people? I’ve been told to try the “nice guy in the corner of my classes” but that’s scary. The last “nice guy in my class” was an English major who did coke on Monday nights and I think I’m good on that for a lifetime. Maybe he wasn’t the nicest, but still.
Sometimes it feels so hopeless, but then I see my friends. One met her boyfriend on Bumble, and they’ve been together for three years. Another on Tinder, and they’re going on almost a year now. Those are just the two success stories that are in my life. I can’t sit here and completely blow off the legitimacy of dating apps. However: I think I might be one of one thousand looking for a potential relationship.
Actually, I’m apparently one of the twenty-five percent actually looking for love on Tinder. The trouble is – this study did not specifically state that the age-appropriate men in my state were matching that percentage, just that of the individuals DailyMail got to participate in a study, twenty-five people out of one-hundred were looking for a relationship. So, seventy-five percent are doing… exactly what I assumed they would be. Looking for the dream girl to take out for thirsty Thursdays who they will “forget” to call on Friday morning.
I should preface this by saying that I had not gone out on a date for a while. This was the first time in a long time that I bothered to dress up. I had tried to go out before – on Valentine’s Day – but my date stood me up. I felt like that was the universe trying to teach me to maybe keep my legs closed for a while.
This was a different situation though. His name was Karlos. Guatemalan, short, sweet. He had been sending me the usual courting calls of my generation. A “what’s up,” “wyd,” and even calling me “baby” every now and then. I wasn’t fully sold on going over but, honestly, I never am. Getting ready always ends up in me pacing all over my twelve-by-seven-foot apartment, counting the seconds between steps, and notifying every female friend I have that this is happening. Well, less of it happening and more of a “this is who I’m gonna be with in case I go missing.” The things we do for love. It’s never easy meeting a stranger for the first time, but I called the queasiness butterflies.
Hookup Culture would truly be a serial killer’s playground. I know that’s morbid, but could you imagine the damage Ted Bundy would have done if he had access to a Tinder account. The process in which he would have had to act decently for a few dates is no longer required, just be witty and ask how a woman’s day is. Even getting out of the car and walking to the front door. It’s not that women in this generation are easy. It’s not that somehow all women across America are easily satisfied with a drunken one-night stand. It’s just that society has forced women to play in a game that we didn’t ask to be put in.
I have a process before going over to any guy’s place. With this guy specifically, I had a mini-interview – to ensure he’d be good for the job. The job being, well, being a decent human being. Hopefully, having answers that make me comfortable enough to find out. I asked him the usual: “Are you expecting sex automatically, is it okay if we don’t, what’s the least you’re willing to settle for?” He passed each test, telling me that nothing was expected, he would be happy with just my company, etc. The same sweet nothings that he lured me in with in the beginning. The next thing I know, I’m crossing the street and meeting him.
Maybe it’s unfair to place the entire blame of hookup culture on men. Some women don’t mind having no-strings-attached sex and can detach their spiritual being from their physical body. I just wish I were one of them. Hookup culture is not all about hooking up on Tinder either. It’s about the lack of commitment. About 30-year-olds looking for someone who is “down to fuck.” How does that even happen? How are you going to be balding and looking for a college freshman to sleep with? It’s about the loneliness of a generation.
His apartment was the most hole-in-the-wall apartment I’ve been to so far. We had to walk over literal cat shit to get to his front door, but I went in. I am no stranger to an apartment with a roach or two in it, but this place was a new low. He turned off all of the lights before I got much of a look but chances are it was better that way. He wasted no time getting to know me, immediately pushing my body against a creaky couch. His mouth tasted like dry desperation on mine. There was an immediate sense that I needed to leave, but I really couldn’t. In therapy, I would learn that this is an automatic response: fight, flight, or freeze.
Maybe it’s the technology that caused hookup culture. A generation of humans used to having any piece of information in their hands in 30 seconds. Where Vine and Tiktok exist. Where six seconds was enough time for millions of people to remember a funny clip. Maybe falling in love is too slow.
Frozen, as if my body was taking a physical screenshot of this moment in time. His rough hands tore off pieces of my clothing. He asked for consent each time. I was silent, my own rapid heartbeat shattering my eardrums. But apparently, silence means “yes” in another language.
My grandparents fell in love slowly, but my grandpa says he falls in love more every day. He finds new wrinkles growing in my grandma’s skin and that’s what tells him. They’ve been together for 60 years. Is that too much time to ask of someone? Is sharing a life too much to ask for? Is love too much to ask for?
Once I was naked, more questions came, but then there was a surprise. I said “no.” The word dropping out of my mouth felt so strange. For a moment, I felt relief. I was no longer just sitting back letting this happen, but then hands were wrapping around my throat. Sometimes silence is the better option, I guess.
One time, my grandparents got into an argument. When couples argue, I think it reveals so much about their relationship with one another. What were they arguing over? My grandpa got my grandmother a pair of earrings so expensive that she was worried about the mortgage payment. She fought over them all the way to the car door, leaving him outside and driving the ten feet down the driveway before the car stalled. He said that, “even the car wanted her to have the earrings”- she kept them.
Where hookup culture is the new norm – so are sexually transmitted diseases. With the pure amount of people that this generation is hooking up with, it’s easy to see that these would be higher. The worst part is that, despite having access to unlimited information, most college students come in not knowing much information about them.
He spit in my mouth. Saliva ran down a throat that never wanted it there in the first place. How does a man not get the hint to stop? The only thing that stopped was his questions. I guess he knew the answer he wanted.
Hookup culture is dangerous. Just look at what it can do to the human body.
My body has remembered what my mind longs to forget.
