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SPEAKER_00
I spent the last few years peacefully unbothered by hookup culture.
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SPEAKER_00
Why?
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SPEAKER_00
Because it was none of my business.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, I was in a relationship.
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SPEAKER_00
Hookup culture is for the singles.
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SPEAKER_00
I would occasionally think about hookup culture because, you know, I live in a culture that enjoys a hookup.
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SPEAKER_00
But for the most part, it was out of my mind.
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SPEAKER_00
And it was kind of incredible, to be honest, because I ve never been somebody who thrives in a casual hookup scenario.
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SPEAKER_00
It s just not for me.
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SPEAKER_00
And some of you might be thinking, Emma, you re trying to say you re not like other girls.
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SPEAKER_00
You re different.
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SPEAKER_00
You re more emotional.
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SPEAKER_00
That s why you don t like hookups.
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SPEAKER_00
No, it s not that.
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SPEAKER_00
It s because I tend to be nervous and uncomfortable during it.
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SPEAKER_00
And afterwards, I tend to feel some sort of pain.
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SPEAKER_00
And the pain varies, you know, the source of the pain varies.
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SPEAKER_00
But every time there s been some sort of pain.
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SPEAKER_00
So that s why I don t thrive in that scenario on the surface level.
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SPEAKER_00
But it s back on my mind, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
Because these days, I m back to being a lone wolf, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
I m back to being a free agent.
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SPEAKER_00
And with that comes hookup culture being relevant in my life.
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SPEAKER_00
You probably know what hookup culture is, but just in case you don t, let me throw a definition at you.
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SPEAKER_00
Hookup culture is one that accepts and encourages casual sex encounters, including one night stands and other related activity without necessarily including emotional intimacy, bonding, or a committed relationship.
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SPEAKER_00
Now, listen, I m 22 right now.
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SPEAKER_00
I m pretty young.
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SPEAKER_00
I grew up in hookup culture.
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SPEAKER_00
In high school and even middle school, it was all about the hookups.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, anytime there was an event where no parents were gonna be there, it was like, who s hooking up with who?
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SPEAKER_00
It was how you showed that you were cool.
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SPEAKER_00
It was how you found a little boost of confidence.
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SPEAKER_00
Hooking up was all the rage.
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SPEAKER_00
Unfortunately for me, my exposure to casual hookups was genuinely traumatic, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
It started with my first kiss.
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SPEAKER_00
My first kiss was terrible for me.
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SPEAKER_00
I was not ready emotionally to be kissing boys.
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SPEAKER_00
I was not confident in myself.
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SPEAKER_00
I was really, really frightened of any type of romance.
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SPEAKER_00
And I weirdly felt like I was too young.
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SPEAKER_00
But everybody around me was doing it.
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SPEAKER_00
And so I set myself up to have my first kiss and I did it.
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SPEAKER_00
And in the moment I felt very detached, very scared, very uncomfortable.
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SPEAKER_00
This was a kid that I met that night.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
And the entire time I felt very emotionally removed from it.
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SPEAKER_00
And I remember the next day I cried.
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SPEAKER_00
I cried because it just felt so wrong to me.
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SPEAKER_00
It felt so icky to me.
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SPEAKER_00
And for the rest of high school, I continued to have casual hookups.
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SPEAKER_00
All of them were very innocent, just a little makeout.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, no sex yet.
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SPEAKER_00
But at the time, you know, a little makeout carried a lot of emotional weight for me.
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SPEAKER_00
Now, not as much.
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SPEAKER_00
Back then, it was almost like having sex for me mentally.
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SPEAKER_00
It was so significant, you know?
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SPEAKER_00
Almost every experience was terrible, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
I remember I made out with one guy at a concert, and later I found out he didn t even really want to.
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SPEAKER_00
His friends were just like, dude, go make out with her.
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SPEAKER_00
Dude, go make out with her.
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SPEAKER_00
And I found out he just didn t even like me at all.
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SPEAKER_00
Meanwhile, I really liked him, so that fucking sucked.
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SPEAKER_00
Another time, I had a huge crush on this guy, and we re at a beach bonfire, and we make out, and I was really awkward for some reason.
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SPEAKER_00
I was too nervous.
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SPEAKER_00
I was too nervous because I had such a big crush on him.
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SPEAKER_00
And I was just being weird, like I was tense, I remember.
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SPEAKER_00
And he just got weirded out by me, because he was like this hot, cool guy.
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SPEAKER_00
And he was like, why is she stiff as a board?
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SPEAKER_00
What s she so nervous about?
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SPEAKER_00
Fuck this girl.
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SPEAKER_00
I m going to go make out with someone else.
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SPEAKER_00
And he just looked at me weird in the middle of it and then walked away and then told everybody that I was the worst kisser.
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SPEAKER_00
And it was terrible.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, that was terrible.
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SPEAKER_00
It was terrible.
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SPEAKER_00
It was terrible.
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SPEAKER_00
So it s safe to say that my experience has been rocky from the start.
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SPEAKER_00
When I left high school and I moved to LA, I then started dating, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
And I started dating pretty much immediately.
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SPEAKER_00
And I ve sort of been a serial dater ever since I moved here.
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SPEAKER_00
When I look back at the past four or five years, I ve kind of just been in relationships.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like, I m in a relationship, it ends, I heal, I find another one, it ends, I heal, I find another one, it ends, I heal, I find another one.
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SPEAKER_00
There s been very short chunks of time in between each.
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SPEAKER_00
And so I haven t really had a lot of time
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to participate in hookup culture.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think that that was sort of intentional because my experience in high school was so bad that I was like, okay, I m not into this.
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SPEAKER_00
Like this doesn t work for me.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t like this.
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SPEAKER_00
So instead of using my single time to hook up with random people, I m going to use my single time to find my next boyfriend.
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SPEAKER_00
In retrospect, I think I had it all wrong, right?
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SPEAKER_00
I think I should have been using my single time to focus on myself a little bit more, but no regrets.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, so in between the boyfriends I ve had, I ve had such a short amount of time that I ve only had time for one and a half, okay, one and a half casual hookup experiences.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve only had time for one and a half, not even two, one and a half.
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SPEAKER_00
And those happened approximately four years ago.
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SPEAKER_00
OK, I remember at the time I just wanted to see what it would be like, because my entire life I had heard all of these positive reviews about casual hookups.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s so fun.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s so exciting.
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SPEAKER_00
This, this and that.
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SPEAKER_00
And I felt sort of left out.
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SPEAKER_00
On top of that, though, I think I was still recovering from being sort of rejected by a few guys that I had dated.
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SPEAKER_00
And that was weighing heavily on my confidence.
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SPEAKER_00
And I was like, you know, maybe
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SPEAKER_00
hooking up with guys casually could give me a little confidence boost without actually having to commit to them.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, it s like I can get this little confidence boost while I wait for somebody that I can actually date long term.
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SPEAKER_00
And so, you know, I gave it a try one and a half times.
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SPEAKER_00
And the experience was okay.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, it was fun.
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SPEAKER_00
It wasn t bad.
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SPEAKER_00
Like it wasn t bad.
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SPEAKER_00
But I remember in the moment feeling like it was definitely weird.
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SPEAKER_00
Like it felt so empty.
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SPEAKER_00
And that was sort of unsettling to me.
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SPEAKER_00
Like,
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SPEAKER_00
I would have sex casually and then I d be like, OK, I need to leave, you know, like, OK, now I can t be around this person anymore.
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SPEAKER_00
And that felt so wrong to me because sex is such an intimate thing.
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SPEAKER_00
And I felt sort of guilty about wanting to get as far away from the person afterwards as I possibly could.
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SPEAKER_00
I also felt really uneasy about how weird it is to be strangers with somebody and then to all of a sudden be almost playing pretend like we re dating for like an hour and then to just go back to be strangers again.
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SPEAKER_00
was so weird, it almost felt like playing a game.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, in the moment it can be sort of enjoyable, but I always had it in the back of my head that it felt off.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, it felt really off to me.
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SPEAKER_00
And you know, I ended up regretting my very short list of casual hookups after the fact, because I wasn t proud of the fact that I went into it looking to find confidence.
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SPEAKER_00
I didn t feel good about the fact that I didn t really like the person I had sex with, and they didn t really like me.
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SPEAKER_00
And the whole thing just sort of felt icky to me.
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SPEAKER_00
And I had this weird feeling of regret where I was like, now in their mind, they ve seen a side of me that very few people have seen.
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SPEAKER_00
And I don t know if they deserve that.
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SPEAKER_00
And that has nothing to do with them as a person.
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SPEAKER_00
But I went through this phase where I really wanted to get that back from them.
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SPEAKER_00
Like I almost feel like I gave them something.
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which I don t think is necessarily true, but it was really bothering me that they got to see a side of me that is really sacred.
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SPEAKER_00
And it just bothered me.
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I went through years of regret.
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And a lot of you might be like, Emma, what is wrong with you, you grandma?
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SPEAKER_00
Like literally people have sex with like 50 people a year and don t blink an eye.
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Like what s wrong with you?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
This is just me.
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SPEAKER_00
This is just how I psychologically react to casual hookups.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
So now let s fast forward to now.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
I m back to being a lone wolf.
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The concept of hookup culture is back on my mind.
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SPEAKER_00
And shockingly, I went into it with an open mind.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, I wanted to reexamine the concept.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes, my past experiences have been terrible, as I just displayed for you, but I m a very different person now.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
I m much more confident.
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I m also not desperate for validation from sexual partners as much as I used to.
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I really had an issue with that.
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when I was younger and I just have so much more life experience.
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SPEAKER_00
So I was like, okay, let s, let s re-examine this with a brand new lens.
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SPEAKER_00
Let s try this again with an open mind and see if it s something that can work when you re a little bit older, you know?
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SPEAKER_00
And so, you know what?
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SPEAKER_00
I dabbled.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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I dabbled a little bit and I want to share what I found because I feel like I went into it with a really fresh lens and I came out of it with some solid conclusions.
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SPEAKER_00
Now I want to say these are conclusions for me.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
These are not conclusions for you.
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SPEAKER_00
Everybody is so different.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, what works for you might not work for me.
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SPEAKER_00
What works for me might not work for you.
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SPEAKER_00
So let s discuss the pros and cons of casual hookups.
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SPEAKER_00
Let s start with the pros.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, we re starting out positive.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, there s only one pro.
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SPEAKER_00
There s not a lot.
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SPEAKER_00
It is pretty incredible to be able to develop your independence and enjoy singlehood while still getting to enjoy sex.
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SPEAKER_00
Being single can be so magical.
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SPEAKER_00
You can put all of your effort into developing yourself, building a life that you love, making friends that are magical.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not blinded by being in love.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not blinded by an illusion of love.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not blinded by anything.
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SPEAKER_00
You re in this shit for you.
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SPEAKER_00
But of course, we love intimacy.
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And I think the idea that we can have both is gorgeous.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think there are maybe times when it works.
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Personally, I ve yet to find a way to make it net positive, but I can imagine that there are some people out there who have found a way.
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SPEAKER_00
And that leads me to the cons of the casual hookup, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
I already know I m going to sound like a grandma, so just
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SPEAKER_00
Listen, I m down to be random, fuck whoever, don t care.
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SPEAKER_00
I m down to do that.
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SPEAKER_00
That sounds so fun, but I ve yet to find a way to do it where it doesn t come at a cost.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t wanna be a grandma.
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SPEAKER_00
I wanna come on here and be like, listen, you guys, so I can t stop hooking up with everyone.
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SPEAKER_00
I can t stop, I m obsessed.
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SPEAKER_00
I can t stop, I m having so much sex.
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SPEAKER_00
Can t stop you guys.
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SPEAKER_00
I m having sex with everybody.
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SPEAKER_00
I meet it is so fun.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow, like no one Has as much game as me.
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SPEAKER_00
Nope.
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SPEAKER_00
No, no No, because I win.
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SPEAKER_00
I d love to come on here and say that I would love to but unfortunately I m coming on here like a grandma
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SPEAKER_00
talking about why I ve found casual hookups aren t the best.
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SPEAKER_00
I m on grandma mode today.
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SPEAKER_00
Sorry.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
So let s discuss the cons.
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SPEAKER_00
I already sort of touched on this, but it s just weird.
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SPEAKER_00
It s just weird.
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SPEAKER_00
Inevitably when you re casually hooking up with somebody,
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SPEAKER_00
you re not that close.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not that close.
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SPEAKER_00
There are times when, you know, you maybe have like a fuck buddy or something and you kind of become close, but I d argue in a lot of ways that sort of becomes a romantic relationship.
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SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, nobody wants to put a label on it, but I don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
I consider that more of a relationship when it s continuous.
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SPEAKER_00
I m talking about a casual random hookup.
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SPEAKER_00
I m talking about like a one night stand vibe or maybe a three night stand vibe.
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SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00
A lot of times you really don t know each other.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t have a foundation of friendship.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t know each other and you re literally having sex and
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SPEAKER_00
You re pretending like you re dating for a brief period of time, and then you re back to strangers again.
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SPEAKER_00
And for that brief period of time, when you are sort of pretending like you re in a relationship in a weird way, you can feel detached, like emotionally detached.
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SPEAKER_00
That s my experience anyway.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think the reason why I subconsciously detach is because I m uncomfortable.
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SPEAKER_00
I m nervous.
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SPEAKER_00
I m a little weirded out.
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SPEAKER_00
I m like, yeah, I want to be here.
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SPEAKER_00
I m doing this because I want to do it, but I don t know you like that.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know you like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Who are you?
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SPEAKER_00
You re touching me like we ve been dating for like six years and I don t know you.
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SPEAKER_00
That s a crazy concept to me.
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SPEAKER_00
Like,
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SPEAKER_00
When I m in that moment, I m like, ah, I don t like, who are you?
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SPEAKER_00
Who am I to you?
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SPEAKER_00
You don t know me.
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SPEAKER_00
I m also like reciprocating this action.
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SPEAKER_00
Like I ve known you for six years and I don t know you.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like so bizarre.
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SPEAKER_00
It s so bizarre to me.
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SPEAKER_00
And it sort of gives me an existential crisis the next day, because I m like, wow, intimacy doesn t have to be built up over time.
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SPEAKER_00
It can be fabricated in an instant, but it doesn t feel real.
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SPEAKER_00
And maybe to some people it does, and that s something I ve pondered a lot.
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SPEAKER_00
For me personally, I feel detached.
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SPEAKER_00
I feel weird.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe some people don t.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe some people can jump into intimacy immediately and not feel like it s fabricated.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe for them it s not fabricated.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe that s one-sided.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe that s only coming from my end.
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SPEAKER_00
But the whole thing just feels...
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SPEAKER_00
so whack when you re in it.
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SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00
Next con, someone might want it to turn into something more.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
A lot of us go into a hookup like, okay, this is just for fun.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like I don t need to see this person ever again.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like this is just for fun.
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SPEAKER_00
I found that a lot of times one person ends up catching feelings a little bit, ends up getting attached a little bit.
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SPEAKER_00
Chances are one of you is going to get hurt.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there s the occasional instance where both people fall in love with each other through a one night stand, sure.
1
SPEAKER_00
But more often than not, one person gets attached and the other person wants nothing to do with the other person.
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SPEAKER_00
And that leaves you with a situation where either you have to be an asshole or they have to be an asshole.
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SPEAKER_00
And the reason why I say asshole is because having sex with somebody is very vulnerable.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s very sacred to a lot of people and
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SPEAKER_00
It always feels a little insensitive to cut someone off after you have sex with them.
1
SPEAKER_00
Now, it s all fun and games when both of you never want to speak again afterwards or just want to be friends afterwards or something.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
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SPEAKER_00
But that, again, normally doesn t happen.
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SPEAKER_00
In my experience, one person
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SPEAKER_00
wants to go on a date all of a sudden, you know, and someone s going to have to be the asshole and cut it off.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that just feels terrible on both ends.
1
SPEAKER_00
If you re the one who has to be the asshole, you feel terrible because you re like, I went and had sex with this person.
1
SPEAKER_00
Now they like me.
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SPEAKER_00
I feel terrible that this meant more to them than it meant to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I have no choice but to sort of cut them off.
1
SPEAKER_00
It hurts on the other side for even more obvious reasons.
2
SPEAKER_00
because now you like someone and they don t like you back.
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SPEAKER_00
And when they don t like you back, it hurts 10 times worse.
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SPEAKER_00
when you were so vulnerable with them for a moment in time, it hurts 10 times worse.
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SPEAKER_00
Next con, it can be tempting to really lean into hookup culture when you re going through a breakup because you re trying to move on from your ex.
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SPEAKER_00
You re trying to get them out of your head, but unfortunately that tends to make it worse.
2
SPEAKER_00
Not always, not always.
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SPEAKER_00
I think short term it can be helpful.
2
SPEAKER_00
Short term, it s a distraction.
2
SPEAKER_00
Short term, it sort of breaks the cycle with the last person and it can sort of be the sign of a new chapter, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
But long term, I think it actually makes it worse.
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SPEAKER_00
This is not to say that you can t go and hook up with people after a breakup, because it s like, okay, obviously you have to do that eventually.
2
SPEAKER_00
But at times, people seek out casual hookups to try to get over an ex as quickly as possible, and that s when it s a problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you go and you start hooking up with people too soon, I think it can be a problem.
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SPEAKER_00
Because in the moment, it s a distraction.
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SPEAKER_00
If you re lucky, it might actually be a really great experience.
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SPEAKER_00
But when you re going through a breakup, the emptiness that you might feel will only go away temporarily during a hookup.
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SPEAKER_00
The emptiness that you feel comes back.
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SPEAKER_00
And in my experience, it comes back 10 times worse.
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SPEAKER_00
I m not exactly sure why this is.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe it s because you expect to feel better after you hook up with somebody.
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SPEAKER_00
You expect the emptiness to go away.
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SPEAKER_00
And when it comes back, not only are you feeling the emptiness again, but now you re also feeling the disappointment that the casual hookup didn t
2
SPEAKER_00
fix your problem like you thought it would.
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SPEAKER_00
I also think that a lot of times we start hooking up with new random people and without even meaning to, we start comparing them to our ex if we re going through a breakup.
2
SPEAKER_00
And inevitably, it s not going to be good because it s inevitable that when comparing your ex to a random hookup, your ex is going to look better a lot of times because you actually had a relationship with your ex.
2
SPEAKER_00
You actually had an emotional bond.
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SPEAKER_00
With this random person, you have nothing.
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SPEAKER_00
You might even have better sexual chemistry with this new person, but you don t have memories with this random hookup person.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t have history with them.
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SPEAKER_00
Your ex will almost always come out on top when you compare the two.
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SPEAKER_00
That s why I think it s such a nasty, nasty cycle when you go through a breakup.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like,
2
SPEAKER_00
You go through a breakup and you want to go and distract yourself and just start getting out there.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you start hooking up with people.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, let me just get it over with.
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SPEAKER_00
And then it ends up making you miss your ex more over time because you re trying to put a band-aid on an open wound and you need to get stitches.
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SPEAKER_00
And the only way that you can get stitches is by having some time alone and rebuilding
2
SPEAKER_00
your confidence and your sense of self again until you feel strong enough to go back out there and really hit the town in a strong way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Another thing I hate about a hookup is that it s so hard to do that without alcohol.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve never once not been at least pretty buzzed.
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SPEAKER_00
Why?
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SPEAKER_00
Because you don t know what to talk to them about.
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SPEAKER_00
It s awkward.
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SPEAKER_00
It s uncomfortable.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t know what to expect.
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SPEAKER_00
Now, this doesn t apply to everybody.
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SPEAKER_00
I know some people are totally good not drinking in these types of scenarios.
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But I know a lot of people who need alcohol for this type of scenario and myself included.
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And in general in life, I don t like relying on alcohol to be able to do something.
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You know, I used to feel like I needed to be drunk to go to a party.
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And so you know what I did?
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took a step back for a second, rethought it and said, I need to learn how to go and be social without alcohol.
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So I stopped drinking and I started being more smart about where I went out so that I didn t feel the pressure to drink.
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And then now I m at a place where I can go to any party and I don t feel the pressure to drink.
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I don t need to drink socially.
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I don t ever want to be in a situation where I feel like I have to be drunk to participate.
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And I ve come such a long way socially and confidence-wise that at this point I feel like I should be able to do this.
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without alcohol, but I still don t think I could and that s a sign to me that I shouldn t be doing it.
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You know, if you need a substance to participate in an activity, there s some sort of growth that needs to be done.
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On top of that, it harms your self-esteem when you rely on alcohol.
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When you feel like you need alcohol to do something,
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It makes you feel incapable, which fucks with your self-esteem, and that s not good for anyone.
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Next con, I don t think it s good to go out on a Friday night with friends with the expectation of hooking up with someone.
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And it can be really easy to fall into that routine where it s like, okay, when I go out, I m gonna hook up with someone.
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I m gonna find somebody to hook up with.
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I m going home with somebody tonight.
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It s happening.
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And the problem is when you set these types of expectations, you end up wasting your whole night looking for somebody to hook up with.
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Instead of just living in the moment, okay, dancing with your friends, having a conversation with somebody who s just cool.
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Yeah, maybe you re not into them.
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You re not attracted to them.
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You wouldn t have sex with them, but they re just cool.
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Maybe you re not entertaining those types of people because you re too busy looking around for someone to hook up with.
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Like spending the whole night scanning the room for a hottie is not fun.
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I m sorry, it s not fun.
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I will admit in my life I have ruined some nights because I just wanted to find someone and you just have so much less fun that way.
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But also I swear the universe knows when you re looking for somebody to hook up with because they never send someone your way on those evenings ever.
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The only time I ve ever had luck has been when I ve gone out and been like, I don t give a fuck.
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Tonight, I just want to have fun.
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That s all I care about, having fun.
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I don t care about anything else.
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What happens, happens.
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I don t care.
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Now this next one,
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I m still chewing on it in my brain, but I am wondering if casual hookups sort of take the meaning away from sex.
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As I mentioned earlier, casual hookups make me just detach.
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I m somewhat removed from it when I m in it.
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And there is a bit of pretending going on because
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You don t know each other.
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You have to sort of pretend, like, you know what I mean?
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I feel like the more that sort of just becomes your brain s norm during sex.
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I don t know, I ve noticed this in myself.
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It s like my casual experiences have made more meaningful experiences less exciting and I wonder if that s just me getting older and me just becoming more desensitized to sex because I ve had more of it so then I just don t,
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feel as explosive of emotions about it, but I don t know, because I ve talked to some people in my life, a lot of people in my life, in fact, about this, and a lot of people have agreed with me, like the more casual sex they ve had, the more sex just feels meaningless to them.
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Maybe it loses its meaning because you re experiencing it with people who don t have meaning to you.
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You know, maybe that s why it sort of loses its novelty.
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Next con, I think at times it can get in the way of finding somebody who can be good for you long term.
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Listen, not all of us are looking for somebody to be with long term.
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But I mean, I would say I am, you know what I mean?
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Like ultimately my goal is to find somebody to be with long term.
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Not everyone has that goal.
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So I guess if you don t have that goal, then this doesn t really apply.
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But it s very time consuming to find people to hook up with, okay?
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Maybe you re using Instagram, you re finding hot people on Instagram.
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Maybe you re using a dating app, you re doing that.
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Maybe you re just
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just bar hopping on Friday night, whatever you re doing, you re taking a lot of time to do it.
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And when you re searching with the intention of finding somebody to hook up with, you might miss somebody who could actually be a great long-term partner who just maybe doesn t have the vibe that they wanna hook up.
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Like when you set an intention like, okay, I m finding somebody to hook up with, you might miss
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the people in your peripheral who would be great to date.
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Now some might argue that there s overlap, like the same people that you want to hook up with are the people that you want to date.
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Yeah, but that s kind of complicated too because let s say you re overlapping, you know, you re choosing the same people to hook up with that you would date.
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Okay, well let s say you hook up with one of those people.
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And let s say you really start to have feelings for them.
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It can be kind of tough to backpedal and build a relationship backwards after starting everything out with sex because ultimately a good romantic relationship is built on a foundation of friendship.
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And I don t know, there s something sort of unnatural about going backwards and sort of building this friendship when you already have this intimacy established
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You sort of have to force yourself to go back and build this friendship now.
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On top of that, sexual chemistry can be blinding because you may think that you have this connection, this special connection with this person, but really you just have sexual chemistry and your friendship might not end up working out.
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So you might end up creating a dysfunctional relationship or just another failed relationship.
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There s a lot of room for error when you have to backpedal and build a foundation when you ve already had sex.
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In my opinion, in my experience as a grandma.
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Next con, sometimes we hook up with people that we really, really don t know.
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And if you re like me, that makes you anxious.
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Who the fuck is this person?
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Who is this?
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Who is this?
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They don t know me well enough to be in my space like this, yet I m letting them into this space.
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I invited them into this space, yet they don t know me like that.
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Not only that, but are they lying to me?
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Do they have an active sexually transmitted infection?
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Are they cheating on their girlfriend?
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What s happening?
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Are they filming me right now?
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You don t know.
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That s the other thing.
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When you re just kind of random with it, you have no idea who you re dealing with.
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You just have no idea.
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And that s frightening, okay?
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You re having a very, very vulnerable moment that has health risks, safety risks, et cetera, and you don t even know who this fucking person is.
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It s ridiculous.
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And last but not least, okay, last con,
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You may be trying to boost your confidence in the wrong way.
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Listen, we all just want to feel hot, cool, special, attractive.
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We all want to feel that.
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And nothing gives you a little boost of that more than sex.
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It s the highest form of flattery in some ways, you know It s like wow, this person is so attracted to me that they want to Have sex with me Unfortunately, though the little confidence boost that you get from a casual hookup is short-lived Okay, it s very very short-lived Number one because there s a chance that the person you had sex with doesn t actually respect you doesn t actually care about you
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And when you figure that out, it might make you feel ten times worse than you did before because now You don t feel hot cool and special anymore.
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And on top of that you feel like you just got played which makes you feel even worse about yourself, but also There are times when you may choose somebody to have sex with it.
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You don t respect and
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And, you know, when you go and have sex with this person that you don t respect, when you look at yourself in the mirror the next day, you re like, wait a minute, why would I do that with somebody who I don t respect?
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Now I don t respect myself.
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Why did I stoop down to that level?
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That s not cool.
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That s not hot.
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You know, going into it for a confidence boost, it s just, it s not,
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It s not going to work.
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And even if everything goes just as planned, and you have sex, and this person actually respects you, even though it s just a casual hookup, and maybe they even start to like you, and maybe you even like them back, if you re trying to find your confidence in something outside of yourself, it will always end
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in catastrophe.
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And on that note, I m a grandma.
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I m a grandma.
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You know, I m celibate.
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No, I m kidding.
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The funny thing about all of this is that, like, I know that all this is true.
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Like, I m giving you my findings.
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I m showing you my findings.
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And yet I might go and contradict these things tomorrow.
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Like, I don t trust myself.
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Like, I don t know.
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Like, even though I know all of this is true, I still might go and do it again.
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I might.
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But, you know, that s what s fun about being in your 20s.
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You know that something doesn t benefit you, but you do it anyway because it s fun.
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But is it fun?
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I don t know.
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I don t know.
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Here s the thing.
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Everyone s different.
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Okay.
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I m going to really nail this into your brain.
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Everyone s different.
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This is my experience.
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This is what I ve found.
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You might have the opposite experience.
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You might be like, Emma, I love casual hookups.
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It works for me.
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It s fun for me.
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I love it.
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And you re wrong.
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And guess what?
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That s totally fine because none of us are wrong.
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We re all just different.
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I don t know.
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Let me know if you agree with me, though.
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I m genuinely curious.
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You can shoot me a DM on the Anything Goes Instagram at anything goes and let me know because I genuinely like I m very curious because there s a lot of people in my life who agree with me about this.
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There are some people in my life who completely disagree with me on this.
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It s very split.
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I would say 70% agree with me, 30% completely disagree with me.
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And the whole thing is so fascinating to me.
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Because I wonder, why is it so different for people?
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Is it just personality?
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One type of personality thrives in this environment, one doesn t.
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Is it the cumulative experiences that you ve had throughout your life?
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What is it?
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I don t know.
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I don t know.
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Anyway, that s all I have for today.
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Thank you all for listening and hanging out.
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I hope that you enjoyed it.
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And if you did, new episodes of Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday.
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You can listen to anywhere you stream podcasts, but video episodes are exclusive on Spotify.
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You can follow Anything Goes on Instagram at Anything Goes.
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You can follow me on Instagram at Emma Chamberlain.
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You can check out my coffee company, chamberlaincoffee.com.
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We have coffee, we have tea, we have lattes in a can, we have lots of stuff.
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You can order online or use the store locator and see if we re in a store near you.
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And I don t know, I guess I ll just talk to you soon.
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I can t believe I just talked about sex for so long considering so many people don t think that I have sex.
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It s like an urban legend that like I don t have sex, so.
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I actually get it, but it s also kind of like, really?
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Like, come on.
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Yes, I do.
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Obviously.
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Obviously I do.
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And it s obvious that I do a lot too, because I considered a half of a hookup, a hookup almost earlier in the episode.
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Okay.
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Talk to you guys later.
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Love you guys.
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Talk to you later.