By The Numbers

Being in the dating game can seem like you’re playing things by the numbers sometimes. Just like sports, there are all sorts of stats that may become applicable when judging overall success or failure. How many relationships have you had? How many people of the opposite sex have you kissed - and perhaps for a few of you, how many members of the same sex have you kissed? How many people have you participated in more than kissing with? How many of those were one-offs that were never repeated? Does it count twice if you never meant to do it again after the first time around?

All relevant questions but for a few, not easily answered. For some the numbers are too numerous to recall or so insignificant they were simply forgotten and for others there may have been reasons due to which there was an inability to remember anything in the first place. There are also those for whom there are other grey areas. Times when the question is asked - does it really count? I know some people who won’t include an experience because it didn’t last for very long, it didn’t mean anything or wasn’t ‘worth’ being counted for some reason. More often than not when people are considering their ‘hook-ups’.

For today’s young single women there almost seems a push to play the field a bit before inevitably settling down. There is still a double standard that says we should not get out as much as men but it is far more acceptable and even expected that we will have at least a couple of relationships under our belt before The One. We are part of the hook-up culture that says that we can now go out and do exactly what we want. We don’t have to wait by the phone any more and we don’t have to sit on the sidelines. And these are a couple of the messages outlined in ‘The Hookup Handbook: A Single Girl’s Guide To Living It Up’ by Lavinthal and Rozler.

Just like the many other dating guides and self-help books out there, this one seems to be about empowering women. Encouraging them to be pro-active rather than just waiting for Mr Right to come along. Despite the racy overtones of the book’s title, The Hookup Handbook is not encouraging women to embrace sexual abandon however, but rather to explore the possibilities they are comfortable with. According to the authors, a hookup has less to do with what happens between people than with the surrounding circumstances. It is ‘anything from making out to doing the nasty’ but with generally ‘no commitment or plans for said commitment’.

So it seems there is plenty of reason to look for Mr Right Now as opposed to Mr Right. It also seems that there is a very broad definition of what constitutes a hook up. Given that, I’m not quite sure what I would be tracking at right this moment but perhaps the more important figures are the number of dumb things I think I’ve done and the amount of decisions or things things that I’ve regretted. And since the answers are one and none, I’m not doing too badly.