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more or less on their own to figure out an alternative. In other words, no other script exists side-by-side with hooking up that students can opt to use instead. Emily, a sophomore at Faith University, put it this way: “If [hooking up] is not what you’re looking for, then I guess it is hard to escape it.”
Students who would prefer to go out on traditional dates every weekend cannot change the fact that they did not enter college during a time when that was the “in” thing to do. Thus, students can use their own moral compass to make personal decisions on how to use the hookup script, but their decisions are constrained by their environment and the time period. The modern college campus is conducive to hooking up, and no individual can change that.
It is my hope that readers have gained a better understanding of the hooking-up phenomenon. I believe that the stories of college students and young alumni presented here provide a look into the world of campus life and single life after college as many young people experience it today. The information in this book can be useful for those on the outside looking in at campus life, particularly college administrators and parents seeking to guide students through their college careers. I hope that they, and other commentators, will come away with an apprecia-tion for the systemic issues that impact individual experiences.
I also hope that my work will be useful to researchers who study social problems on the college campus, such as binge drinking, STD transmission, and sexual assault. Understanding the relationship between hooking up and these issues is crucial because, I believe, these campus problems grow out of a larger context of how students socialize and form sexual and romantic relationships. Without understanding this context, it would be difficult to find any effective solutions.
For recent graduates who are trying to make sense of a new singles scene, this book can provide insight into where they have been, where they are going, and why things change (almost overnight) after they leave the campus environment. Although hooking up ceases to play the dominant role in social life that it did in college, it has lasting effects for alumni. After college, individuals must learn to adapt to a new script (i.e., formal dating), yet prepare to switch back to the hookup script when circumstances make it possible to do so. I hope alumni readers will find the views of other twenty-something singles insightful.
Most importantly, I believe that college students who are learning to navigate the hookup system will find the information in this book 186
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helpful. Many students I interviewed spoke of having to find out how hooking up works as they made their way through college. By sharing their experiences of college life, they have given current students a point of reference on the hookup culture. Although students may not identify with all of the individuals in the preceding chapters, I think that the stories of some men and women will resonate with each reader.
Understanding others’ perspectives on hooking up will allow students to see how their intimate lives fit into the bigger picture. I hope my work will give students the opportunity to reflect on what they are doing, why they are doing it, and will ultimately help them to make informed, and possibly better, decisions about their lives.
Methodological Appendix
In order to obtain interviews for the college portion of the study, I solicited professors at both Faith and State universities to ask for student volunteers to participate in the study. Some professors permitted me to contact their students via e-mail so a description of the project could be sent to them; however, most professors gave a handout to their students with a description of the project and information on how to contact me if they were interested in volunteering for the study. Importantly, only professors who had a diverse group of students in terms of gender, grade level, and major were asked to help me obtain interviewees. For the college portion of the study, I interviewed 33 women and 18 men. I also interviewed students of all grade levels, including 8
freshmen, 20 sophomores, 11 juniors, and 12 seniors. Given that many aspects of students’ social lives change throughout their college career, it was important to include the experience of students from freshmen through seniors.
I recruited interviewees through a number of means. For the college portion of the study, I asked professors from a variety of disciplines to hand out an interview solicitation in class. For the alumni portion of the study, I found interviewees via an alumni Web site as well as by mailing an invitation to participate in the study to homes of recent graduates within a two-hour radius of their undergraduate institution. I avoided snowball sampling because it might have led to misleading data. Snowballing would inevitably lead to interviewing people from the same crowd or clique. Since perception of the behavior of other members of the college community was a part of the college portion of the study, it was important to vary the type of students being interviewed.
To obtain alumni interviews at the faith-based university, I utilized a Web site containing alumni e-mail addresses. At the state university, I utilized the alumni office to reach graduates from the previous 10 years who lived in surrounding zip codes (i.e., within approximately 60
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miles). I contacted alumni ages 23–30 and asked if they would volunteer to meet me for an interview. For the alumni portion of the study, I interviewed 16 men and
