A recent article in Time Magazine focuses on the so-called “hook-up culture,” which has become a subject of much concern and debate. Particularly from older Americans who graduated from college a while ago. Now, the students and twenty-something are speaking out.

The writer of the Time article complained about the media coverage of a college professor in Boston named Kerry Cronin, who requires her students to go on a “real date” as part of their class credit. “No thanks,” the writer says in her article, “I’m here to inform that professor that we 20-somethings don’t need help, thank you very much.”

She goes on to reference statistics to disprove that hook-up culture is an epidemic, citing less than 15% of college students have more than two hook-ups per year. Also, “hooking up” means anything from sharing a kiss to having sex, so the lines are a little blurry as to how much people are engaging in risky behavior.

She also argues that it’s much more natural to socialize with people and get to know them in groups and at parties where it feels more organic, rather than over coffee and forced conversation. While she makes good points, she also admits that it is easier for her generation to hide behind a screen, especially when it comes to being rejected. Text is the preferred method of interacting, rather than asking someone out face-to-face as Professor Cronin argues they should.

Her points are valid, but there is definitely room for improvement. While college students (at least in the past couple of generations) have engaged in a higher level of casual sex and hook-ups than at other times in their lives, there does seem to be a shift in college students’ thinking today. Because they are attached to their smartphones, pulling them out at parties or in dorm rooms instead of engaging with the people sitting next to them, they aren’t really learning how to be alone together, to engage in conversation without distraction. This doesn’t help them learn to communicate better in relationships.

Also, there is the drinking that goes on at college. Much of the hooking up takes place after indulging at parties, which means people aren’t making the best decisions when it comes to their bodies.

But does all this mean they aren’t prepared for dating?

I think that college provides a good backdrop for learning how to interact and flirt. There are plenty of single, available people who you have something in common with – which likely you wouldn’t encounter again. So why not experiment with dating in a group setting, among your friends?

All of the formal asking out will happen once they graduate. And even then, hook-up culture exists in even more removed ways – through dating apps like Tinder. Dating is still part of growing up, no matter how you try to avoid the particulars.

San Diego-based dating service It’s Just Lunch has been ordered by a U.S. judge in New York to face a class-action lawsuit filed by some of its former clients.

The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that the company fraudulently misled them about their services, charging $1,000 per year for services that they did not deliver. This includes falsely promising clients (many affluent and highly educated women) that its staff would “hand select” appropriate matches for dates.

Judge Sidney Stein of the U.S. Court in New York wrote this of the lawsuit: "In short, virtually all evidence in the record indicates that during the period at issue, IJL staff relied on a uniform script to inform prospective customers during initial interviews that IJL already had at least two matches in mind for those customers' first dates regardless of whether or not that was true.”

While their argument got approved to go to trial in New York, the judge did refuse to certify a nationwide class-action lawsuit, citing that there were too many differences in the laws of individual states in regard to this particular case.

While the plaintiffs consider this a victory, It’s Just Lunch has yet to respond to the charges.

According to Courthouse News Service, It's Just Lunch sales staffers have an "info-call script" during their training at "First Date University" to guide them through calls with potential customers, the complaint alleges. They were not allowed to deviate from the script, according to President Melissa Brown’s admission to the court. At the heart of the issue for the judge is the part of the script says, “Ok, so far I have 3-4 ideas for your first date,” meaning matches that would be suitable for the client, even if the call center employee didn’t have any matches at the time.

IJL offers an initial client interview, the selection of a potential partner based on a client's desires, goals and motivations; and the arranging of lunch at a restaurant, or alternatively an after-work drink or a weekend brunch.

It’s Just Lunch proclaims itself to be “the world’s #1 personalized matchmaking service” on its website.

“You’ll find It’s Just Lunch is very different from online dating,” the website states. “Our professional matchmakers are genuinely interested in understanding you and finding out what kind of person you are looking for. Our process works and we have proved it over and over again. With over 20 years, 2 million dates and thousands of dating success stories to show for it, we can honestly say we have the experience required to improve your chances for dating success.”

If more ex clients join this class-action lawsuit, IJL might have to reconsider their marketing along with their business decisions.

When it comes to committing to a relationship, men can take a lifetime deciding whether they are really ready for the relationship or not. It can be quite a frustrating moment for women. The biggest problem that women face with men is that they never seem to grow up. When will he begin to understand and accept love with all its responsibilities, complexities, and rewards? Why is it that the prospect of being committed and settling down seems so cumbersome and scary to men? The important question is - can a woman break through a man's supposedly secret barriers and make him commit to a relationship? It is definitely possible and the following steps will show how easily you can make a man to commit to the relationship.

When is he going to grow up?

Men perennially have their growing up issues. The fear that men experience rises from the belief that if they take too many hurried steps towards adulthood then they might lose themselves or their identity or individuality. It is a fear that most men are born with. A man will always weigh the potential consequences of growing up and definitely ponder upon what it will actually cost him. Will the relationship strangle him? Will it take away his freedom? Will he be able to watch baseball games in the middle of the night? These are just reflections of the fear that has the ability to consume him and thus he will always be scared of committing to the relationship. So how can you make him commit?

You need to start from the basics. Here are the two most important secrets that most women never know about how they can easily make a man commit.

Secret#1: You need to identify what your man responds to. This is the easiest way to get into his world. For example - if your man loves trekking all alone, get indulged. That is not just his hobby but his own space and soft spot. Tell him about these new places that he can go off for a trek. Get indulged in his trekking as if you were trekking with him without being over-burdening. The more interest you take in his trekking, the more easily he will open up and accept the responsibilities of the relationship.

Secret#2: Men are born with the ego that will put Kull the Conqueror to shame. Massage their ego! You need to make a man feel as if he has conquered something. You won't believe this but a task as menial as pushing an elevator button or opening the door of a restaurant is quite important for a man. For example, something as menial as parking the car, you have two options - you can argue that your man has not parked in the right place or you can let him park where he wants. If you go with the first then you have already lost him but if you go with the second then you can be rest assured that he will accommodate all your desires just the way you accommodated his desire to feel conquered.

The bottom line is that you should never try to convince a man for commitment just glide with him through his world and he will automatically become committed to the relationship!

The dating service Coffee Meets Bagel was built on three simple principles:

1. Your friends are the best conduits for your dates.
2. Meeting quality people doesn't have to be complicated or awkward.
3. Unless you choose to share it, your dating life should be private.

Instead of offering the overwhelming number of potential matches that most dating services do, Coffee Meets Bagel sets itself apart by highlighting only one person each day. You can either "like" or "ignore" the profile, and if both parties indicate interest in each other, they're directed to a private phone line (courtesy of Twilio) where they can text message for a seven-day period. If all goes well and they choose to meet up in person, CMB offers a discount at a local restaurant or café.

The idea is a solid one, but Coffee Meets Bagel has not yet managed to achieve the mass appeal of its biggest competitor in the mobile dating sphere: Tinder. Still, CMB has received $2.8 million in funding and recently launched its largest app update yet.

The big news in CMB-land is a new IM system within the Coffee Meets Bagel app. Like before, the IM feature has a seven-day expiration date, but now users can chat immediately without having to switch back and forth between apps.

Instant messaging is hardly a revelation in the world of online dating – in fact, it's downright standard – but CMB has found a somewhat unique approach to implementing it. With in-app messaging, Coffee Meets Bagel now has far more control over its users’ experiences, and many more opportunities to learn about their users by studying behavior data.

CMB is a “quality over quantity” dating experience. The focus is on making meaningful connections between users, not on connecting as many users as possible. On top of that, users are never introduced to random strangers, but rather to Facebook friends of friends. The company has found that members who exchange text messages within the first 24 hours are more likely to exchange their real phone numbers later on. They also, on average, chat at 2.6x the volume of those who didn't swap texts within the first day.

That unique approach to mobile dating, plus the new IM system, may be what Coffee Meets Bagel needs to take things to the next level. But founder Dawoon Kang says that stigma is still the greatest challenge faced by dating services:

“What we observe is that a lot of people hesitate because they don’t want to feel like they are ‘actively’ trying to meet someone. Making people understand that a dating app is just another channel of meeting someone has been a challenge.”

Most women will agree that they prefer equal partnership when it comes to romantic relationships. This mean they each have equal say and an equal role to play in things like finances, child care, household chores, and major decisions like where to live or whether to start a business.

It makes sense in our culture, as the majority of women are pursuing both careers and families. They want a partner who respects and supports their ambitions.

But what if the reality is different from our post-feminist ideal of equality in relationships?

New research by New York University doctoral candidate in sociology Ellen Lamont is challenging the way many women still seem to accept certain elements of “the man’s role” both in terms of dating and marriage.

Maybe some of this rings true for you: Lamont found that when dating, women seem to prefer the man to ask them out and to pay for the date, a more traditional role. Also, women like to leave it to the man to make decisions about the trajectory of their relationship. That is, they wait for him to say “I love you” or to commit to being serious first. Essentially, this puts the man in control of the relationship.

It seems dating and courtship play a big role in how women view long-term relationships. If during the dating process, women put the man in the driver’s seat (so to speak) and let him decide where things are headed, then how is it possible to easily transition to an equal partnership once they are in a long-term, committed relationship?

“[Women] want traditional courtship and egalitarian marriages and I just don’t think that will be possible,” she said. “Their justifications for traditional courtship are based on beliefs in essential biological differences between men and women and they reinforce these beliefs in their dating practices.”

Lamont chose to study women who had some form of college education to better understand women who are balancing both career aspirations and wanting a love relationship. Even with education and ambition, many of the women still subscribe to “traditional gender norms,” according to Lamont.

“Women were supposedly so desperate to get married, while men were supposedly so reluctant,” Lamont said. “I wondered if women’s so-called desperate behaviors that are so frequently highlighted in the media were actually the result of the powerlessness they feel about the process of getting engaged.”

It’s an interesting point, and maybe one worth considering as we move forward into a bigger and more technologically advanced dating pool.

The women surveyed ranged from 25 to 40 years of age.

If you’ve tried out Tinder (or any dating service, for that matter) you’ve probably run across your fair share of bizarre conversations. It's a strange world out there. Sometimes the weirdness borders on amusing, but all too often it's annoying or downright creepy.

Thankfully, the Internet makes it easy to disengage from the creeps. It takes no effort whatsoever to ignore a message and hardly anything extra to block or report a user. But where's the fun in that? Why take the high road when you could take the low road, where all the fun is?

Anna Gensler, a 23-year-old artist, has a much more interesting way of dealing with the deadbeats of online dating. She began drawing nude portraits of the creeps who contacted her via Tinder, and posting the results to Instagram (NSFW, of course) alongside their offensive messages. And then, for the cherry on top, she sends the finished product back to the culprit for a final review.

Slate spoke with Gensler about her unique approach to turning harassment into art. “I feel like this gets me in trouble a lot,” she said of her inspiration for the project, “but when someone does something I think is rude, I always want to give them a taste of their own medicine. I’m an artist, and I try to use art as my weapon, even though that sounds so lame. So I thought, ‘What is something I can do to make me feel the way that they’re making me feel?’”

She settled on drawing them “sad-naked,” the most immature thing she could think of, because “their pickup lines are the most juvenile, basic things, but also still oddly offensive.” Each of her portraits is based on the guys' profile pictures, but modified to be as unflattering as possible. The subjects are all made chubbier, scrawnier, or just not particularly well-endowed.

Not satisfied with taking on the creeps of Tinder, Gensler joined OkCupid in hopes of finding new subjects worthy of her artistic intentions. She even put a blatant warning on her profile – “I’m going to draw you naked if you send me rude messages” – and a link back to the Instagram. Whether or not it deterred potential creeps is unknown, but it did intrigue a surprising number of nice guys who found the project funny and requested a portrait of their own.

And what about the guys who receive Gensler’s works of art? “There are a few approaches,” she explained. “Some of them get really angry and say a bunch of mean stuff. Some of them get a little bit offended ‘and say, “Why am I so fat? My facial hair doesn’t really look like that. My nipples are smaller than that!’ They think I didn’t do them justice. Some people just block me. But a couple of guys have actually said smart things after I sent it to them.”