Attitudes toward dating have shifted from traditional dating practices to hanging out and hooking up.

“Today’s dating scene is 0 to 60 instead of the old courtship rituals,” David Onestak, Counseling Center director, said.

Eric Davidson, Health Education Resource Center director, said in today’s dating scene people sometimes do what is referred to as “hooking up,” which “is for one night” and usually with “casual acquaintances.”

He said that in “hooking up” situations people will sometimes meet again by chance but will usually never exchange phone numbers and sometimes not even names.

Onestak attributes the “hooking up” situation to the fact that when students engage in high-risk drinking they are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behaviors as well.

When people drink they lose their inhibitions and give into exhibitions, he said, adding that a majority of students who participate in casual hook-ups are highrisk drinkers.

An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education concerning the same issue said that 39 percent of students on college campuses are virgins.

Davidson said he agrees, “most students are making healthy decisions and health choices.”

Davidson said that sexually transmitted diseases on Eastern’s campus are comparable to other campuses; however, it is hard to get an accurate count because students will sometimes be treated off-campus and then are too embarrassed to report it.

However, Onestak said that couples on campus are becoming physically and emotionally serious “after only a few weeks.”

This causes emotional hardships to those in these relationships, he said.

He went on to say there is a percentage of students on campus who are engaging in a long-term relationship, which he classified as a year or more. However, he added that those students are not in the majority.

“Students in peer groups who perceiving hooking up as a valued behavior will hook up or try to hook up more than others,” Davidson said. “There is a minority of students who are verbal about these practices of hooking up which causes the majority who don’t focus on hooking up with someone every weekend to be intimidated not to speak out against these practices.”

Onestak did offer advice for women who are wanting a man to provide certain courtship rituals.

“Women are like an oven and men are like a microwave,” he said, applying the simile to the types of relationship that each gender desires.

“If women would expect more then men would have to give more.”