Dating in a world of commitment-phobes

By Breena Kerr

It's springtime again, and flowers are not the only things blossoming. That's right, it's the season of love. Love and hooking up ... or just hooking up.

In case you hadn't noticed, dating is essentially as extinct as the dinosaurs. It seems that people just get drunk and hook up, and "going out" with someone is basically just hooking up with the same person over and over again.

If it were just dating, I think I could learn to accept this casualty of modern life and move on. However, it is the extinction of another antique concept that is really unfathomable: commitment.

While I too have fallen victim to the idea that hooking-up-as-dating constitutes a relationship, looking at my past relationships has led me to wonder if commitment really is as outdated as the unfortunate skorts we used to wear in middle school.

And now, a breakdown of the last three commitment-phobes I have dated (names have been changed so as not to embarrass the guilty):

Exhibit A: From the Midwestern background of apple pie and pinning your girlfriend with your football badge, I sensed from the beginning that "A" and I were both pretty keen on pinning each other. Yes, he had the aggravating habit of showing me cheeky photos of himself and his ex from time to time, but then again, I had an on-call, no strings attached, hook-up buddy. Things were great â?¦ casual. So casual, in fact, that one drunken night I rounded the bar corner to find him macking on one of my best friends. His explanation: "I wanted to kiss her, so I did." Can't argue with good old fashioned honesty! I didn't fight his logic, but I did call him trashy before I told him never to call me again. A double standard, I'll admit, but old habits die hard. Although I hate to admit it, every once in a while, I can't help but send him a drunk text.

Exhibit B: "B" was a smoking hot friend of a friend who looked like Bob Marley and John Legend's deliciously impossible love child. He showered me with compliments, and actually took me on a date (gasp) to a museum and a fancy restaurant. He lived in San Francisco, so our dates always had the romantic benefit of the moonlit bay or some swanky bar.

Cons? He exhibited a disturbing affection for all things Dutch, and I don't mean red lights and pot. Men, if you like a woman, don't ask her out and then look at her with puppy-dog eyes when the check comes. It's not egalitarian -- it's aggravating.

In retrospect, the first red flag was his reluctance to use the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend". To him, our relationship was above such stale classifications. Yeah... right.

He dropped the non-commitment bomb one day as we were about to go wine tasting in Napa. He tentatively kissed me, took a step back and said, "I'm worried I'm going to cheat on you." Suddenly, cheating wasn't a decision, but something that happened to people with good intentions. He might as well have said, "Sweetheart, I'm worried that global warming might be real." Well folks, global warming is real. My relationship with "B" clearly wasn't.

Last was Exhibit C. Now, "C" was an older man with a killer smile who always got the check. No more little boys for me; this was a grown-up romance.

Yet one night, after a six hour Cabernet-soaked romantic dinner, I brought up the subject of monogamy. I had pegged him for the marrying kind, but quickly sensed I was trying to fit this modern man into a very square peg.

Never mind that "C" thought a man should be the main breadwinner, hated when a woman couldn't cook. The look on his face when I mentioned exclusivity said loud and clear, "Date ONE person?!" According to this man, dating one person was simply outdated. And shortly thereafter, so was "C".

Ask most young people what they want, and they will say a good job after graduation. But with dating, we've gotten lazy. Plan a date? Stay faithful to one person? That is not fun. It's hard. Okay, it's fun and hard. But hooking up is fun and easy. So is McDonald's. We want our relationships like we want our food -- drive through. Forget that there's no nutritional value; the scent of sex is as hard to turn down as a bag of french fries.

So when I'm not asking myself why I'm attracted to commitment-phobes, I like to imagine life with my contemporaries 50 years down the line.

If my grandfather's generation is spending their last years with their life partner, shuffling down the street hand-in-hand for better or for worse, I see all of us trolling the retirement home bingo hall, looking for our next hook-up pal. Just replace copious amounts of booze with a little blue pill and it'll be like old times. I can't wait.

Breena Kerr is a senior communication major.