You’ve downed four beers already and are starting on your fifth. It’s 1 a.m. and you are just about gone – it’s a typical Friday night at Bruno’s. Not falling off the barstool gone, but gone enough to start dancing with your girlfriends and start to realize that guy at the end of the bar looks familiar – and he’s hot, too.

He’s in your biology class Tuesday and Thursday at 2 p.m. You don’t know his name, and you don’t care because he’s got his eye on you. With a fluff of your hair and tug at your top, you’re on your way over there to talk to him. There’s no turning back now. A little conversation, and an hour goes by. Before you know it, you’re back at his room in Biever and clothes are coming off.

In the morning, you wake up next to a guy who’s drooling on his pillow, looking less and less attractive by the second. Your head is pounding, but you grab for your clothes, maybe even grabbing his gym shorts instead of your pants and get the hell out of there.

Congratulations. You and what’s his name have just hooked up. At least it isn’t a Tuesday or Thursday.

HOOKING UP DEFINED

Hooking up.

It’s a phrase that every college student has used, whether they have ever done it or not. But you can’t look it up in the dictionary – unless of course you visit Urbandictionary.com, which defines hooking up as “getting together to get it on … a term used to refer to cheap, meaningless, no-strings-attached sex.”

But according to students on Loyola’s campus, hooking up really has no definition, or if it does, it depends on the person using the term.

A female math sophomore, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “In college, when people say ‘hook up,’ they use it as ‘having sex.'”

A female chemistry junior, who also wished to remain anonymous, defined hooking up as “everything but sex.”

“It’s like a late night booty call almost,” she said.

Rob Teter, marketing sophomore, said he defines hooking up as “all of the above.”

“Fooling around is hooking up,” he said. “It’s more than kissing, but not limited to (only that).”

“I think it’s a little bit of everything,” said accounting senior Anthony LaRocca.

According to relationship expert Dr. David Drew Pinsky, M.D., better known as Dr. Drew from the Discovery Health TV show “Strictly Sex with Dr. Drew” and the radio show, “Love Line,” the definition of hooking up doesn’t matter universally. “Even the term dating leaves something undefined,” he said, so why define the physical act of hooking up officially?

The definition might be undefined across the boards by Loyola students, but what is truly alarming is the rate at which hook-ups are occurring on college campuses. It’s becoming a trend, like big sunglasses and popped collars.

Most professors and parents find this new trend disturbing, but a 2000 survey conducted by a professor at the College of New Jersey concluded that 78 percent of students have had at least one hook-up while in college. It also found that a student accumulates an average of 10.8 hook-up partners by graduation.

The reason that this recent trend is leaving many psychologists scratching their heads is because of what students are ignoring and replacing with hooking up. Students are leaving traditional, committed relationships behind for less emotionally involved sexual satisfaction.

OPTIONS

According to Dr. Drew, women have three options when it comes to any kind of relationship with a man, and vice versa: 1. Rapid relationships (boyfriend and girlfriend) 2. Friends with benefits and 3. The hook-up.

Dr. Drew believes that the reason women tend to go for the hook-up is because “it is more socially acceptable” to have a hook-up. He said that, “women’s internal monologues keep telling them this is more acceptable.”

A female mass communication sophomore who wished to remain anonymous said that if she is hooking up with a guy and “(they’re) kissing and stuff, it’s easier because (they’re) not together.”

“You can use hooking up as a way out, almost,” she said.

Dr. Drew believes that the reason men prefer the hook-up over a committed relationship first is because it makes them a little bit braver when they know an emotional attachment isn’t there.

“The college social scene caters more to hooking up,” Teter said. “Guys don’t want a girlfriend. They’re looking to go out and take someone back to 200 LaSalle Ct. Then, hopefully, the girl’s gone by morning.”

“I try to avoid a committed relationship,” LaRocca said, but he also attributes his tendency to hook-up and avoid committed relationships to the “quality” of the women at Loyola.

“Girls at Loyola all think they’re top stock in the stock market, but they’re really just like Enron before it crashed,” he said.

THE ALCOHOL FACTOR

Another reason women can get in the mindset of thinking hooking up is socially acceptable, and men get braver when hooking up is due to the one key factor that is present in every hookup, according to Dr. Drew: alcohol. Shannon Kelley, visual arts sophomore, said, “A lot of people are just looking to hook up, but alcohol does help. Ah, beer goggles.”

The same study by the College of New Jersey found that of the 78 percent of students having had at least one hook-up, mostly after consuming alcohol.

“Alcohol is often times always involved (in hooking up),” the female mass communication sophomore said. “You need that comfort.”

“Everyone gets wasted,” LaRocca said. “It’s an excuse to (hook up).”

IN A RELATIONSHIP

More than 500 Loyola students on Facebook list “in a relationship” as their relationship status. If you walk through the Palm Court or Smoker’s Alley on any given afternoon, chances are you’ll find at least two or three happy couples holding hands or sitting on a bench together.

“I think hooking up is on its way out, in exchange for relationships, ” Dr. Drew said.

But one thing that all students said they desire in a relationship is the ability to talk to another person and carry on a conversation.

“What do you really want out of another person? Conversation. Conversation is always the answer I hear from people,” Dr. Drew said.

As students go through college, their hook-up partners might increase, but they say that so does their desire for something more than a one-time thing. Maybe this culture of hooking up is just like any other trend – it will eventually fade away.

Nicole Wroten can be reached at [email protected].