Why Valentine's Day Is for Losers

Dating practices and sexual behavior still vary along racial and economic lines, but some common assumptions, particularly about suburban versus urban kids, no longer hold true. Parents often think that teenagers who grow up in cities are more prone to promiscuous sexual behavior than teenagers in the suburbs. But according to a comprehensive study sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Development, more suburban 12th graders than urban ones have had sex outside of a romantic relationship (43 percent, compared with 39 percent).

It's unclear just how many teenagers choose hookups or friends with benefits over dating. Many, in fact, go back and forth, and if the distinction between hooking up and dating can seem slippery, that's because one sometimes does lead to the other. But just as often, hooking up is nothing more than what it's advertised to be: a no-strings sexual encounter. Recent studies show that it's not uncommon for high-school students to have sex with someone they aren't dating. A 2001 survey conducted by Bowling Green State University in Ohio found that of the 55 percent of local 11th graders who engaged in intercourse, 60 percent said they'd had sex with a partner who was no more than a friend. That number would perhaps be higher if the study asked about oral sex. While the teen intercourse rate has declined -- from 54 percent in 1991 to 47 percent in 2003 -- this may be partly because teenagers have simply replaced intercourse with oral sex. To a generation raised on MTV, AIDS, Britney Spears, Internet porn, Monica Lewinsky and ''Sex and the City,'' oral sex is definitely not sex (it's just ''oral''), and hooking up is definitely not a big deal.

The teenagers I spoke to talk about hookups as matter-of-factly as they might discuss what's on the cafeteria lunch menu -- and they look at you in a funny way if you go on for too long about the ''emotional'' components of sex. But coupled with this apparent disconnection is remarkable frankness about sex, even among friends of the opposite gender. Many teenagers spend a lot of time hanging out in mixed-gender groups (at the mall, at one another's houses), and when they can't hang out in person, they hang out online, asking the questions they might not dare to in real life. While this means that some friendships become sexually charged and lead to ''friends with benefits'' (one senior from Illinois told me that most of her friends have hooked up with one another), a good number remain platonic.

On Valentine's Day, I was invited to spend the evening with 12 junior and senior friends in an upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago. They were hanging out, eating pizza and watching TV. Not one had a Valentine, and most said they wouldn't have it any other way. Several pointed out that having close friends of the opposite sex makes romantic relationships less essential. Besides, if you feel like something more, there's no need to feign interest in dinner and a movie. You can just hook up or call one of your friends with benefits.

''It would be so weird if a guy came up to me and said, 'Irene, I'd like to take you out on a date,''' said Irene, a tall, outgoing senior. ''I'd probably laugh at him. It would be sweet, but it would be so weird!''

Irene and her friends are not nerds. They are attractive and well liked, and most have had at least one romantic relationship. If that experience taught them anything, it's that high school is no place for romantic relationships. They're complicated, messy and invariably painful. Hooking up, when done ''right,'' is exciting, sexually validating and efficient.

''I mean, sometimes you'll go out with a group of friends and meet someone cool, and maybe you'll hang out and hook up, but that's about it,'' said Irene's friend Marie (who asked me to use her middle name). ''There's a few people I know who date, but most of us are like, 'There's no one good to date, we don't need to date, so why date?' ''