Our time in college serves many different purposes. The primary objective of college (for most people at least) is to earn a degree that will help them in establishing a career post-graduation.

Second to this pursuit, however, is the need to cultivate social connections, including romance.
It is a well-known fact that many couples met each other in college and my grandmother always said that college was a time for me to meet my future husband.

While the idea of marriage does seem a little (OK, very…) daunting at this age, it is my observation that relationships in college seem to have become a thing of the past.

“Hooking-up” has become the more common practice, and in my conversations with various students both males and females seemed extremely hesitant to label their relationship to the person they may be “hooking up with.”

This term itself even proved problematic in its definition, since many people had different ideas of what exactly a “hook up” was.

One senior said, “If you told me you were hooking up with someone, I would automatically assume you meant you were having sex, but you just did not want to say it.” However her friend seemed to believe that “hooking up was just making out.”

However you choose to define the word, one characteristic is clear: it is not a commitment.
College students are using hooking-up as the more common mode of operation, simply looking for a “no strings attached or friends with benefits situation” as one junior said.

Whatever romantic comedy title you choose to use to define the circumstances, it has become obvious to many students that relationships are not the norm.

We need to ask ourselves how and why this shift in the view of relationships has changed.
While it is true that not everyone is out to meet their soul mate, this new default setting may be indicative of a more concerning question: Are we afraid of commitment, or has society in general simply become too lazy to put in the work it takes to form a lasting relationship with another person?