Dating in college comes with many expectations including expectations of wild hookup culture and practicing unsafe sex. Experts say the truth about dating on campus is much less chaotic and offer advice on how to approach dating in a safe way.
Dr. Kami Kosenko, a professor in communication, does research and teaches a class on sexual communication. Kosenko said being direct and making your intentions clear is always the best approach to a date, whether through words or the way you compose a dating profile.
“The research would suggest that you’re most likely to be effective if you take a direct approach,” Kosenko said. “So you don’t beat around the bush, you don’t hint at your interest in someone — express your interest in them directly and ask them if they share an interest in you or that you would like to spend some time one on one with [them] … and also being direct about the lack of interest is important.”
Mak Rink, a fourth-year studying communication, is the vice president of The Movement Peer Educators, a group of students trained to educate other students on issues of interpersonal violence.
Rink said not every date or relationship has to look like they do in pop culture.
“You don’t have to do all the things just because you see it on social media, or you see it on rom-coms,” Rink said. “I think that’s one thing that especially dating in college and dating in general is a lot of things get misconstrued, and you feel like you have to go in, you know, ABCDE order when you’re on a date, which is not the case at all.”
Rink said she advises certain precautions when seeing people you are unfamiliar with, like choosing a public setting for the date, during the daytime, in an area where it would be easy to dismiss yourself and letting friends or family know where you are, who you are with and when to expect to hear back from you. She said these precautions can vary from person to person and to be aware of your own safety concerns and limits.
Kosenko said the newness of college can render new students at risk of interpersonal violence, citing the metric that individuals are most likely to be victimized within their first six weeks on campus. She said much of this results from unfamiliarity with college and expectations of hookup culture.
“Research would suggest that there really isn’t [a hookup culture], in fact, students of college, the general college age, tend to be having less sex than their parents,” Kosenko said. “Don’t feel like if you’re not having sex, or hooking up every weekend, that you’re alone; there are plenty of people who are not hooking up [and] have no interest in hooking up or are in long-term, committed relationships. But that’s not the message we get, we get the message that college is this wild place where everybody is hooking up and having these unprotected sexual encounters. And I think that sort of infantilizes students — like you’re adults, and college students make a lot of good adult choices.”
Rink said it is often difficult to make reasonable judgments about your own situation, due to the feelings that attention gives. She advises students to reflect on how they feel after dates and to seek input from friends and family.
“Being very mindful of the way that you feel afterward,” Rink said. “Was it fulfilling? Was it uplifting? Or did you feel like you had to mold and be a different person and say certain things. … Was it natural? Did that person try to demean you in any way or make comments that just didn’t feel totally great? … Talking to trusted people in your life is helpful — kind of divulging with them. If they get the chance to meet that person and how they felt about them … people that you trust will really give you an honest answer.”
Rink said consent is essential and elevates the quality of a relationship.
“Regardless of if you’re initially dating or not, communication is always important, and it always needs to be enthusiastic,” Rink said. “At least from my friends, consent is very attractive. When somebody is asking you if something is OK to do to them, that is a very respectful thing that not many people may have experienced.”
Kosenko said setting time aside to speak about consent is necessary for the comfort and success of a relationship and future sexual encounters.
“Having conversations about consent and the process of consent outside of the context of right before you’re gonna get busy, like if you do it in a nonsexual situation,” Kosenko said. “To have that conversation where the stakes aren’t as high tends to set the stage for a more pleasurable and consensual and safe sexual encounter if one evolves from that. Trying to think ahead and try to do things to make it so that when you’re in what you know to be a safe setting to have the conversations that might be more difficult when you’re in a setting that’s more questionable in terms of its safety.”
Kosenko recommended Planned Parenthood for its online resources concerning navigating a relationship and safe sex. Check out plannedparenthood.org/learn for more information.
