The New York Times recently reported that, apparently, dating is dead. The story partially blamed social media:

Instead of dinner-and-a-movie, which seems as obsolete as a rotary phone, they rendezvous over phone texts, Facebook posts, instant messages and other “non-dates” that are leaving a generation confused about how to land a boyfriend or girlfriend.

“The new date is ‘hanging out,’ ” said Denise Hewett, 24, an associate television producer in Manhattan, who is currently developing a show about this frustrating new romantic landscape. As one male friend recently told her: “I don’t like to take girls out. I like to have them join in on what I’m doing — going to an event, a concert.”

The story also discusses the "'hook-up' culture":

Blame the much-documented rise of the “hookup culture” among young people, characterized by spontaneous, commitment-free (and often, alcohol-fueled) romantic flings. Many students today have never been on a traditional date, said Donna Freitas, who has taught religion and gender studies at Boston University and Hofstra and is the author of the forthcoming book, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.”

Hookups may be fine for college students, but what about after, when they start to build an adult life? The problem is that “young people today don’t know how to get out of hookup culture,” Ms. Freitas said. In interviews with students, many graduating seniors did not know the first thing about the basic mechanics of a traditional date. “They’re wondering, ‘If you like someone, how would you walk up to them? What would you say? What words would you use?’ ” Ms. Freitas said.

Of course, throwing fuel on the hook-up fire, you've got sites like onlinebootycall.com to make the notion of 'hook-ups' all too real:

The website's home page takes you through ten commandments. Some of my favorites:

- Thou shalt kiss anything except my mouth

and

- Thou shalt never greet me in public — neither shouldest thou comment on my facebook page

The website asks you to look at photos and people on a scale from one to 10. Oddly enough these photos aren't slutty. People are actually fully clothed. Facebook photos are worse than those on this site.

The best part of the website is that at the bottom of the page they have a 'He said, She said' section. Here, people talk about having a real connection with someone they found on 'OBC' and even marrying someone they met on this site.

Clearly these people broke at least one of the commandments. Most importantly, the fact that this site even exists goes to show we've got a lot of work to do as a society if we ever want to go back to the times where dinner and a movie were a norm.