Hello People,

In today’s installation of D. Layne in perspective I’d like to talk to you all about a phenomenon that is rampant in today’s young culture and finds a way to creep into our adult lives. The Hook Up. You will find nothing here in regards to Percy Miller (Masta P) and there will be no holla’s if you hear me. What I am referring to is in regards to somewhat of a more sensitive nature. However, the proverbial rabbit hole goes deeper than that, if we are willing to open our eyes just a bit. The Hook-Up Culture is something that has been sweeping our college culture nation for the last decade and I’m sure the decade prior to. Before that was the 70’s and you know how they got down. Before that, the hippies and so on. However, let’s turn the lens back to our generation.

Back in undergrad, friends and I used refer to this ‘hook-up culture’ as being caught in the matrix, in reference to the pop-culture mega movie. In this movie Laurence Fishburne, my favorite actor, was named Morpheus.

Morpheus, in Greek mythology, was the Son of Sleep or the god of Dreams. For those of you who haven’t seen the Matrix, it was Morpheus’ charge to awaken the people from the tech-infused slumber. I think my friends and I figured it was our charge to recognize when we were caught in a sex-infused slumber, as most college kids are when out and about. We referred to those crazy nights, where the unimaginable happened, as being “Caught in The Matrix” or living in an unreal world of rash and unrealistic decisions, and sexual exploration. I’ve physically witnessed men and women go out on the town and say to themselves or friends not “I wonder who I’ll meet while I’m out tonight”, instead they say “I wonder who I’ll hook up with tonight.” It really is a warped sense of reality. While talking to a friend of mine about this topic, they mentioned that it may be the false sense of security inside the bubble that is their college campus that causes young adults to feel as though it’s alright to make these decisions.
While not everyone partakes in the so-called ‘hook-up culture’ It is a major concern for today’s student while figuring things out for themselves. Here, we are forced to take a hard peek at the implication regarding the ideals of chivalry and how those ideals, for men and women, are affected later on in life by this culture. Is The Matrix or The Hook-up Culture conditioning men to be less chivalrous in dating situations later in life? Is this culture responsible for the lessened expectations of men that women hold down the proverbial line? These are serious possibilities of correlation. There may actually be the effect of a loss of chivalric tendencies over time or at the very least the ideal of chivalry amongst men and women.
Which brings us to the age old question: Is chivarly dead? I don’t believe it so, but then again I write a blog on relationships, so I think about all of this quite often. I open doors for a woman because I was raised that way, not because I’m trying to impress a woman. I do it because it’s the right thing to do. These are intrinsic values that were instilled in me by independent women. There is an interesting dichotomy at play here. Today I find that some women fight against the grain of chivalry, not only because of the ‘Independent Woman’ phenomenon, where a woman acts as though she doesn’t want or need anything from a man (Thanks Destiny’s Child…and yes some women take this to the EXTREME, just as some men take their manly pride to the extreme, to which I am at fault sometimes), but also because they don’t want to seem too high maintenance to a man. There seems to be two feet in two separate pots here, once again interesting dichotomy. One foot where a woman wants a man to be as chivalrous as possible, and one where women say ‘I don’t need a man to do that for me…but it would be nice”. Oxymoronic even, sort of like a tall midget. We should all stop to ask ourselves, are these factors an amalgamation of expectations of the opposite sex? Expectations of gender roles of what a man and woman should or shouldn’t do. I say chivalry is alive and well, you just need to find the right gentleman.
This transition from Hook-up Central to the Real World (Not MTV’s, which is ironic because that’s all they do is hook up on the show) seems to be a rough one for many folks in the dating world, but why? Are the social electronic constructs of the future making it easier or harder to date? Texting is taking the place of calling, poking is taking the place of flirting, and if you meet someone out at a bar or club, as opposed to taking their number, you find them on FACEBOOK! Everyone has a hard line into a social network, and this definitely helps broaden the spectrum for daters but may be adding on to the death of chivalry through the ease of meeting people and the loss of touch that we endure. Online dating is at it’s all time high. Dating in the real world is tedious and not to mention costly, it’s strenuous and difficult, but not impossible. As one of the “good-guys”, this is mostly because a ton of women are trained to think all of the good ones are taken or homosexual, it is hard to find a woman who will take you seriously once you approach them. So you find yourself looking for substance in social settings where you most likely won’t find it. I tend to see a huge drop in sexual activity among men and women after they walk across the stage, and I think it has to do with more than just growing up and out of that ‘phase’. I really do believe that people become lazy due to how easy things are for some folks in college. The age old adage says it best, ‘Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?’ Once people are conditioned to think this way, it’s hard to break this habit until common sense and maturity breaks through.
I believe it’s important for us as people to reflect on the decisions we make in these “think tank” situations such as college and the hook-up culture and also recognize if and when it affects us in the long term. As long as we learn from the situations that we encounter along the way, the future is still bright. Live in the moment, but learn from the moment. It’s all about the lesson people. Red or blue pill…That’s my persepctive, and I’m sticking to it.