Tigers on the prowl

Charlotte and Henry represent opposite ends of a relationship spectrum that several undergraduates said spanned the two extremes of Princeton’s dating culture, in which students are involved in serious, long-term relationships, engage in serial hookups with strangers or are simply single. Charlotte and Henry, like many students interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity and have been given false names in this article.

“You’re only hooking up and getting drunk, or you’ve been with like the same guy since freshman week of freshman year,” Caroline ’10 explained.

The hookup culture

“Hook up” can serve as a noun or a verb, and it often seems like everyone knows when to use it. What does it actually mean, though? Most students interviewed said they define hooking up to be kissing as well as further sexual contact that happens outside of serious relationships, generally without long-term significance.

When Henry is in the mood for a hookup, he said he first singles out a girl he finds attractive in a large group of students. Then he talks with her casually, and, once things become flirtatious, he added, “it kind of just escalates.”

“Sometimes there’s the dance-floor makeout, which is a useful technique,” he added.

The ambiguity of the phrase reflects the advantageous lack of commitment in a hookup, Henry said. Hookups allow students to “weed people out quickly,” he explained.

Hookups usually occur at eating clubs and often involve alcohol, students said, though Caroline noted that sober people can hook up, too.

Ray ’09 said that alcohol is often important in on-campus hookups because “Princeton kids are super self-conscious.”

“[In the] framework of being drunk, you just feel comfortable with hooking up, but not pursuing something when you’re sober,” he explained.

Though the short-term nature of the hookup is built into its definition, a pair of students might often hook up multiple times without it evolving into a relationship, Ray said.

Viola ’10 said that these connections persist because the two parties involved do not get to know each other well enough for their short-term relationship to move beyond purely physical interactions or learn that they are actually compatible outside the bedroom.

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Elizabeth ’11, who just began a serious relationship, said she thought the intense nature of long-term relationships might intimidate students and push them more in the direction of hooking up.

“I think why a lot of people do opt for the hookup culture [is] ... they kind of are in the mind frame of ‘I just want to have fun; I don’t want the pressure of having to choose someone that I’ll be with for the next two years,’ ” she said.

Brandon McGinley ’10, president of the Anscombe Society, said he thought students believe people hook up on campus more than they actually do, an idea he called “pluralistic ignorance.” Since students think the majority of people are hooking up, he explained, they feel pressured to do the same. McGinley is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

Anscombe encourages students to enter chaste dating relationships in which couples abstain from sex, McGinley said. He said a number of Anscombe’s members are involved in such relationships.

Dating culture?

Several undergraduates said they had noticed a dearth of dating at the University.

“There isn’t much of the middle region of casually going on dates and asking people out just to get to know them, but without it meaning anything really significant,” Caroline said.

Because the student body is so small, Caroline explained, most undergraduates do not go on casual dates, such as dining on Nassau Street or going to a concert.

“People aren’t comfortable asking [other students out] because ... if it doesn’t work out, you’re bound to run into the person countless times,” she said. “Social groups overlap so much here that you really can’t escape if you want to.”

Ian ’11, though, attributed the lack of casual dating on campus to Princeton students’ busy schedules.

“I can say that going on causal dates, if you see it as a process leading up to a committed, exclusive relationship, is pretty time- and effort-intensive,” he said. “In a place where everyone is super-busy with their work, I think that’s a big concern, and people don’t really find the idea of actual dating attractive because it’s so ... taxing.”

Monique ’10, who currently has a serious girlfriend on campus, agreed that time was a major factor in the lack of on-campus casual dating.

“I think people are too busy [to date],” she said. “It’s really easy to have that one person that you’re with forever, because you don’t really have time to get to know more people after freshman year, and it’s hard to develop that relationship, and if you already have it, why change it?”

Victor Rivera ’12 said he found the undergraduate dating culture “disappointing.”

Rivera, who has been hooking up on a regular basis since the start of the year, said he has tried to follow up with some of his hookups without much success.

“In general, the girls I’ve met have shown me that I probably ... won’t have much luck trying to court girls because ... they expect jerks for guys, and they kind of expect things to go as far as hookups and nothing more,” he said.

Rivera explained that though there are boys who are only looking for short-term sexual encounters with no further commitment, some guys actually do want a romantic relationship. Often, he added, it is the girls who discourage further interaction following a hook up.

“I think ... most girls on campus expect guys to just want action, to just want to [do] it fast and to never call back, and so I think they want that too,” he said.

Caroline, however, said that there are enough opportunities for male students to hook up that they feel no need to ask female students out on dates. If men had to ask women on campus out on dates in order to “get some action” they would, she said, but as it stands, dating culture here does not work that way.

“When [guys] go out to the eating clubs, there are plenty of people they can just hook up with ... no strings attached,” she said. “It’s over the next day, and they never have to think about it.”

Viola, though, noted that several male students she knows are “boyfriend types” who regularly ask girls on dates.

Asking people out on dates shouldn’t just be men’s domain, Elizabeth said. Women should also make the first move, she said, adding that her male friends complained that “[dating] totally sucks because everything is thrown on [them].”

Couples on campus

Some students choose to avoid the hookup culture completely, tending toward the opposite end of the spectrum and developing serious, long-term relationships. These interactions, they said, provide companionship rather than just sexual gratification.

Stephanie Anderson ’10 and Mike Hasling ’10 have been together since the end of their freshman year. The two initially met when Hasling did the lighting for the spring show of Anderson’s dance group, eXpressions Dance Company, but Anderson explained that the “foundation” of their relationship was the series of long walks they took around campus in the spring.

Though she and Hasling were physically attracted to one another, their relationship was based on more than that, Anderson said. Common interests like completing jigsaw puzzles and baking kept the two connected, she explained, adding that they often do homework together and take similar classes for their shared concentration in operations research and financial engineering.

Though both maintain friendships made before they were a couple, their social lives have become “intertwined” since they started going out, Anderson said.

“What’s so great about the relationship is that it’s so nice just to have someone to experience Princeton with at the same time,” Anderson said.

Keith Hall ’10, whose boyfriend graduated last year, said that dating might be harder in the LGBT community than in the rest of the student body because of the community’s small size.

“It kind of rules out a lot different people, because you don’t want to offend your close friends by dating those people who they’ve dated,” he said, adding, “You don’t want to personally date your close friends [either].”

Nathaniel Gardenswartz ’12 and Newton Allen ’11 first met at an ice cream social thrown by the LGBT Center and then reconnected at an LGBT pool party. It was not until later, however, that the two formed a relationship.

“I found out that he works at the climbing wall, and then I suddenly developed a great interest in climbing randomly during the hours that he was working there,” Gardenswartz explained.

Allen, who said that he was unconcerned about dating during his freshmen year, added that he “suddenly did care” once he met Gardenswartz.

While some students have significant others on campus, Charlotte stayed with her high school sweetheart instead. Last Christmas Eve, he asked her to marry him; she said yes.

Charlotte explained that having a long-distance relationship makes for a good balance with her academic life.

“That person’s not always around, so you have time to do your work and your social activities and still be very involved in campus,” she said, adding that she and her fiance talk every day.

“We trust each other very much. We know everything about each other,” she said. “It just makes it easy to maintain, even if we don’t see each other for a while.”

Moving beyond the hookup

As a freshman, Henry “played the field,” he said. As he got older, however, he noted that he began hoping to settle down in a committed relationship. At the moment, he is in the process of doing just that.

“I just kind of got sick of going to the Street and trying to prowl for a different girl every night,” he explained. “It kind of gets old, I guess.”

Ian, who said he has been hooking up a lot recently, echoed a similar sentiment, said that he wishes he were in a committed relationship.

Viola said that the girls she knows “rant” about wanting boyfriends and that the few male students with whom she’s had similar conversations also seem to want committed relationships, whether they tell her “directly or kind of intimate it.”

“Maybe not freshman year ... but by junior year, you hear all the guys wanting something more, wanting a serious relationship, and [it is the] same with the girls, but no one can kind of match up,” she said. “Whether that’s the girls' or guys' fault or the way the scene is set up, I don’t know, but I think it’s kind of ironic.”