Let me start by saying this: I admire Charles Blow. But he was obviously strapped for something to write about this week, writing a none-too-profound article called “The Demise of Dating.” In said article, he discovers the cultural phenomenon of “hooking up,” which Tom Wolfe wrote “was a term known in the year 2000 to almost every American child over the age of nine.”

Blow enlists the help of a college professor, Kathleen Bogle, to understand why more young people hook up than have relationships. Somehow, it doesn’t strike him that it’s a lot simpler to stick it in than to stick it out with someone. Or maybe he was just hoping his readers aren’t pragmatic enough to grasp this reality.

Blow writes:

To help me understand this phenomenon, I called Kathleen Bogle, a professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia who has studied hooking up among college students and is the author of the 2008 book, “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.”

It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.

I asked her to explain the pros and cons of this strange culture. According to her, the pros are that hooking up emphasizes group friendships over the one-pair model of dating, and, therefore, removes the negative stigma from those who can’t get a date. As she put it, “It used to be that if you couldn’t get a date, you were a loser.” Now, she said, you just hang out with your friends and hope that something happens.

Um, actually, I’m pretty sure there’s still a stigma, except now it’s not just being unable to get a date but also not being able to get laid that can entrench someone in loser hell. And really, is this revelation about the ubiquity of hooking up actually a real discovery?

I’d expect something a bit more penetrating from Blow, but I guess every once in a while, a columnist writes something that blows.