“Brenda,
guess what?” “What?” “I met this guy… Well Sorta. I met him on Tinder.” “What’s
that?”
Ah, the day my view on
relationships changed. It was my third year at LMU so I felt behind. My friend
tells me with this ancy excitement that it is the way of meeting guys. She takes a seat on the couch next to me
in her apartment, and unlocks her pink cased Iphone 5. She directly presses on an
orange flame icon in her app section. “Look, you basically just go through all
these guys and see which you’re attracted to—you pick the age and distance from
you. Try it. Give me your phone. It’s fun!” I nervously yet curiously give her
my phone and there went the next hour. Every time I’d get the notice that I
matched with someone, I couldn’t help but smile—self-gratification ladies and
gentlemen. It was all fun and games until I got that message. I’ll spare the details but it was what many call the
“booty call message” not a: Hey what kind
of music do you like? But rather a let’s
skip the getting to know you and have fun welcoming.
My heart begins to race and I
become flustered at what this guy, who’s existence I’ve only known for 30
seconds, proposes. Hey whoa there, what?
No. No. That is crazy. No. Safe to say this whole Tinder thing wasn’t for
twenty-year old Brenda. This whole Millennial way was not for me at the time.
Millennials claim the hook up
craze. We are in a time where there is no time. For anything. My good friend
Emma Walswick, a dear millennial, explains that hook up culture “mirrors like
our whole personality as millenials. We are easily distracted and never happy
with what we have and always want instant gratification. We hook up because
it’s easy and immediate without thinking about the future and when we get bored
it’s easy to move onto something new and exciting, aka another hook up.”
Everything has to be rushed for us. Always onto what we have to do next.
Tinder seemed crude. I couldn’t
help but think about my grandma telling me, No
man wants someone who has been around nor does God approve of such a thing,
as she sits at the kitchen table because my mom had to work. My conventional
upbringings were that of an angel on my right shoulder, the one who pointed out
what’s right. Even if I don’t like it. Then a red little guy on my left.
But is hooking up that bad if it
expresses independence? A millenialls way of making themselves. Finding their
individuality. The millennial way—where less consider themselves religious and
where more are receiving a higher education. The Atlantic’s article, “The
Sexually Conservative Millennial,” compared millennial’s parents and
grandparents, millennials are “much less Christian.” The article adds that
education does have a big effect as well, “Half of college-educated Millennials
are okay with hookups, compared to only a third of those with a high-school
degree,” as to pose a correlation between being educated and being more open to
less traditional behaviors and therefore seeing less faults in doing things as
we see fit.
A different
source has the opposite reaction to this hookup lifestyle. Sebastian Correa
feels that “the physical is there but the emotional isn’t. No matter who it was
I never felt complete.” Overall, we each
have our own set of upbringings and views towards it. I have come to encourage
it. If it’s safe and not harming your well-being… do it. Emma lastly adds that
it “procures a lot of independence. [She] feel[s] it’s an
okay thing for the time being to find oneself and not completely rely on a
significant other.”
So, as a fourth year who gave a
chance to the whole Tinder craze, only do it if you feel it doesn’t question
who you are, and instead lets you affirm your being by liberating yourself from
societal restrictions. Don’t roll with it because it’s hyped. Roll with it
because you feel comfortable and it’s a mutual situation.
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