Spot On

This op-ed is definitely on target with its analysis of dating and hooking up on college campuses today. It's pretty funny to think that there are serious professors studying the "hooking up" phenomenon today and thinking about it in terms of gender issues and larger social trends. I suppose it shows the possibilities of academic relevance, which is pretty cool, I guess.

Articles about today's young generation, written by those of an older generation, are so often tinged with nostalgia. This one is no different. Its author basically boils today's pseudo-dating formula down to three steps:

1) Hang out in a group with members of the opposite sex.
2) Pump alcohol into the system on occasion.
3) Hope shit happens.

Romance doesn't seem to be too much a part of the equation. In my mind, there is definitely something romantic about mustering the courage to ask a girl out on a date, like in all those old movies where some intrepid guy ventures out to the girl's dormitory and has the receptionist phone his darling. But what's the good of romance when hooking up is so easy?

Can older people really judge though? Does their nostalgia not simply represent a conservative unwillingness to change, or have we the younger people simply entered a degraded age?

Hmm... As with most if not all things, we'll save that question for another day.