“Hookups Starve the Soul” by Laura Vanderkam

“Hookups Starve the Soul” is an argumentative essay that is written by Laura Vanderkam. She wrote this essay when she was attending Princeton University on her freshman year. This essay talks about how hookups satisfy biology, but they do not satisfy emotions. Hookups are when two people have a physical encounter and after it, they do not expect any kind of commitment. A hookup does not necessarily mean having sex, though it can be.

Hookups have replaced dating at most colleges according to a study released by the Institute of American Values. Half of the woman interviewed had been six or more dates. Only a third had been on no more than two dates. Hookups can sometimes be defined by alcohol, physical attraction and a lack of expectation in the morning. The lack of expectation is what usually messes up this type of relationship.

Most of the attachments in the hookups come from several misunderstandings in the relationship, mostly from the female’s side when expectation is formed after a while. Then some ask, why bother asking someone out for dinner when you can simply meet at a party, take a few drinks and go home together? According to an author David Brooks, today’s college kids do not have that time to date because they are so obsessed with getting good grades and even greater jobs. Brooks also mentions how surprised he was to see how little dating goes on. Even though college kids nowadays do not have the time nor energy for relationships, they still have hormones, so they hookup instead.

Laura Vanderkam, she exposes that college kids stumble home together at night, roll around in bed and then pass out. This is also another definition she mentions about hookups. She exposes that when the morning comes, it should be as if nothing had happened. As mentioned before, hookups satisfy biology, yes, but they do not satisfy the soul because it lacks meaning. It is not the same type of attachment from all of those great films and books like “Gone with the Wind” and “Romeo and Juliet”.

Also parents play an important role in this behavior. The constant supervision and structured activities make their children want to hookup instead of falling in love. Vanderkam thinks it is too late to bring back all of those dormitory mother and curfews, and traditional morals that forced courtships in the past. Apparently since Laura Vanderkam wrote this essay in her freshman year, things have not changed that much. In the same study made by the Institute of American Values, only forty percent of the woman interviewed admitted having a hookup and maybe this has been the only changing factor.

We do not need another study to prove that this percent has increased because we see it every day in the behaviors that surround college students. People are more careless and not so obsessed with what others might think. Vanderkam encourages parents to teach their children that life is not a simple series of goals to be met and exceeded. She says that if parents taught that and if parents would just stop scheduling their children’s lives, they would be more lovers, truth-seekers and fewer hookups. And I agree, not because I am against that type of behavior, but because everyone had a right to choose their own paths in life.