Modern day romance The hook up culture

A hook up culture is one of casual dating which may or may not lead to a long term commitment. Messaging and phoning is rampant and to hook up a few conversations gets you into physical intimacy and contact. Talk over a cup of tea makes for a date. Earlier couples used to merit company through the family social circle or a group of friends. Now with the internet boom, social media and Facebook, dating sites have taken over. The individual has become a commodity. A branded site or just an advertisement for various products does the trick. It has become a point of ridicule that dating comes on a mobile app, and true love has indeed become a shopper’s delight. A hook up syndrome has led to a cultural change; just swiping a card and you get a pretty girl to date.

- Amita Shanbag

There are various options at every phase of life. Romance lingers on the freedom to opt. Any acquaintance props up, it is navigation of sexuality of a serious kind. Turning on the heat into commitment makes for a hook up culture, a hype mechanism. Conversation to the next level and winning over one’s heart, makes hooking a specialized activity. There are multiplexes and back seats in cars, this freedom and loosening morals, romance takes strides in unknown places.

Fast paced technology has enabled hook up culture to emerge as a modern intimacy game. You have an endless rigmarole of pick-up lines and games that are matched to gadgets and gizmos. The whole exercise of courtship prevents being isolated in your own spheres, with mindless associations being the order of the day. Love at first sight may happen and the casual encounter which led to love bond makes for a fine commitment. The artificial expression and false pretences may displace strangers from knowing each other. Genuine emotions and casual conversations make this courting mania complete. ‘I met my fiancé on a casual date,” says Gaurav Bathena, a graphic designer. “We had similar professions and our tastes were simple,” he said.

A mundane hook up ensures a devious stance that the pursuit of getting on with it, and pocketing the individual with manipulative conversations is in. The hook up culture has become a fad, a passing fancy, and a new way of looking at romance through technology rather than natural intimacy.

The modern dating world is full of aspirations to evaluate ones worth on dating ambitions and romantic wisdom. Undermining relationships and making collaborations inadequate is characterized by hook up culture, and the connecting may not matter after all. How to behave on a hook up date is not written in books, and non-committal attitudes are prevalent most of the time.