Hey Dr Sue — Why Do Men Never Call After Hooking Up?

I don’t think this is a man thing — I think it’s a hooking up thing. I know plenty of women who never call after they hook up with someone.

The frustration when someone doesn’t call after a hook up is probably because the people involved had different expectations. One person may have viewed the hooking up as just that. Others may view it as the start of something.

We see this sometimes with friends with benefits. In one study about a third of people assumed that a friends with benefits relationship would transition into a romantic partnership…that means that two thirds didn’t. You can start to see where there may be a lack of clarity about what hooking up means for those doing it.

While I’d love to be able to offer some advice here about having how to gauge expectations prior to hooking up, the truth is that trying to talk about that ahead of time may not be helpful. Sometimes people don’t know what they want. Sometimes they know what they want, like a quick hook up, but they also know that if they say that that it’s not going to happen.

Sometimes the issue is different definitions of what hooking up actually is. Some may see it as having oral, anal or vaginal sex. Some may see it as any kind of intimate activity.