In many ways I am just like the girls who enjoy hooking up. I start getting ready to go out for the night at the prime hour of 9 p.m. to ensure I don't pregame too early. I apply my makeup and curl my hair and parade around in my pink robe, wondering what to wear that night. I down shots and wrinkle my nose with disgust. I say something witty, like, "They all taste like water after the first one!" I walk the long trek to the frat house. I get there, fill up a cup with beer and shriek when “Gas Pedal” comes on, because that song is my guilty pleasure. But then, after my friends and I dance for about three and a half songs, they start to survey the room, hoping to catch the eye of a handsome Frat Star.
This is the point in the night when visions of pajamas and a warm blanket start to dance in my head. I suddenly get exhausted, and my feet start to hurt. My friends begin to enjoy the almost sugar-like rush they get from hooking up with a handful of strangers on the dance floor, and I bail early.
I walk home feeling like I struck out, because that's what I'm told I'm supposed to feel. I’m told to feel a certain way, and that is what angers me the most. As liberated (or so I like to think) as women are in the year 2014, I’m told to feel these emotions of failure because I didn’t follow through with what was planned for the night. I didn't stick my tongue down the throat of a frat guy who might not even know my name, and for this reason I will get the pitying looks the next morning. "Oh, I feel bad that you didn't find a cute guy! There weren't that many anyways. Don't worry, we'll go to a better frat tonight."
It wouldn’t matter if we went to a better frat. We could go to the number one-ranked frat in the entire universe, and I would still come home empty-handed, and I would still get the same pitying looks the next morning over brunch.
My perspective on casual hook-ups in college can be attributed to my experiences with them in high school. Many of my friends, myself included, did participate in random party make-outs, and after a couple years of kissing boys who really meant nothing to me the next morning, I realized how empty and boring it quickly became. At least in high school I knew these guys after living in the same town as them for most of my life. In college this is not the case, and the hook-up experience has become even more lackluster in my eyes.
I want meaning and substance in a world where the best night ever consists of sleeping with a guy you know nothing about. I don't mean to say that women who do so are in any way inferior to me, or to suggest these women don’t have any self-respect. If a woman enjoys it, then more power to her. In fact, I envy her. I wish I could have that kind of imagination or inner quality where being fulfilled comes that easily. My life would definitely be easier, and I would be less of a black sheep.
But after 19 years of being on this planet and having my fair share of hook-ups with strangers or peers and hook-ups with boys who meant something more to me, I’ve come to accept that I can't be fulfilled after a hook-up at a frat party. This isn't a sob story of the poor little girl who was too picky and thought herself to be above everyone else. I'm not better than any of the women who are fulfilled through this. I'm not any wiser, prettier or funnier than them. I don’t mean to say I need flowers, chocolates and vows of commitment because I am more special or have more virtue.
I just want the chase and the buildup that makes hooking up exciting and meaningful. Studies show that women are less likely to orgasm when having casual sex than when they’re in a relationship with their partner.
Just like I will never judge a woman who enjoys casual, no-strings-attached sex, I hope for a day when I can go out with my friends to a frat party and just have a good time without the expected hook-up at the end of the night sitting on my shoulders like a 10-pound weight of pressure.
I guess I'm just ready for someone to look me in the eyes before he kisses me, push back my hair and mean what he’s about to do. Is that too much of a fairy tale in the college world I just recently become a part of?
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