It’s the weekend. How many people do you know that are out on actual bona fide dates? None? Not surprising.

Now, how many kids do you know who are out looking to “hook up”?

For previous generations, Friday night was date night, the night you went on a date – to dinner, to a movie, whatever mood might strike you – with that nice boy who politely asked you to please accompany him next Friday night. For our generation, Friday night is dance club night, bar night, party night or whatever night we want it to be. The word “date” has been so phased out of our culture that it doesn’t even hold a definition anymore – just a picture of mom wearing a poodle skirt meeting up with dad at the local diner.

There is a big reason for this – it’s called “hooking up”. What exactly does hooking up mean? Nobody realistically knows anymore, we just know – it’s not a date! It has become the college and university buzz-word for most types of physical encounters. The details are left to our friends’ imaginations.

According to Laura Stepp, a reporter for the Washington Post who is conducting extensive research on the hookup culture for a book she is writing, “[the term hooking up] is intentionally ambiguous because your generation can describe anything they want under that umbrella definition”.

The appeal of hooking up is probably that it usually comes with a “no strings attached” perspective that may seem refreshing as opposed to the commitment of a relationship. The word ”dating” has taken on a different meaning for today’s generation. And for most, it means too much commitment for comfort.

Stepp notices that “A non-sexual term like dating had been replaced with a sexual term, when you say you’re dating, no one knows about a sexual relationship. Dating is way too serious. Dating is like being married, [this] generation doesn’t have a good word for between hooking up and being married.”

And it’s the truth. Almost every story i hear from friends about their drunken weekend’s events includes one or more hook-up tales. It has become so expected that if you don’t hookup something must be wrong.

Society is making this sexual revolution way too easy.