Formal season is upon us and I have noticed a weird phenomenon with guys coming back from formal and acting like huge sissies.

For some reason, a lot of dudes come back and complain about their dates not hooking up with them at formal, and they’ll tell everyone from their fraternity brothers to their lab partners and even the girl herself why they didn’t deserve this injustice.

As a man, I am just going to point out the obvious fact here—you shouldn’t expect your formal date to hook up with you, or at least shouldn't whine about it if it doesn’t happen.

When it comes to formals, fraternities beat sororities every time. Fraternity formals are awesome because everyone has the opportunity to get out of town and go on a mini-vacation from the four-year vacation that is college. We live in a time where Netflix & Chill is the standard go-to for dates, so formal is a chance for couples to get dressed up, have a few drinks, and actually get to know each other in a fun environment.

The problem with formal is that there tends to be a lot of expectations involved. It’s like prom, except instead of your mom buying your date a corsage, you get her a handle of whatever brand of vodka is her favorite. The expectation a lot of guys have is that they expect that will be hooking up with their dates, but when it doesn’t happen, guys don’t know what to do with themselves.

The thing is, if your sole intention in going to formal is hooking up, then take someone you are already hooking up with.

That is the only way to lock that expectation in. However, if you are not hooking up with anyone at the moment, then you are not even in the position to complain about not hooking up with your date. The same rules apply to taking the girl out of your league. If you need an elaborate formal in order to hook up with a girl, then odds are she is not the one you should, or will, be hooking up with. If you are dumb enough to be set up with a random date for your fraternity formal, I’m guessing you’re not exactly in the position to complain about her not hooking up with you to her buddies, or even worse, to her.

A guy complaining to a girl about her not hooking up with him at formal blows my mind. I’m not sure how many times the sympathy card works for these guys, but I highly doubt a girl is going to hook up with you at that point to make up for it, either.

If you think paying for your date to go on a bus trip to NOLA and your hotel room together counts as payment for a hookup, you’re wrong.

Your date is not a prostitute.

Besides, girls that go on formal end up throwing down a good amount of cash themselves. Just look at that formal cooler. Not only does a cooler take hours to paint, but stocking up the cooler with alcohol to drink for the bus ride to formal costs money, too.

I’m not making some radical statement here or trying to put down my fellow men, but the complaining I hear from guys about not getting any from their dates is just pathetic.

Is there anything wrong with wanting to hook up with your date? Hell no. I mean, unless she’s a strictly platonic, she’s-like-my-sister type of friend, odds are, you invited her to formal because you are interested in her, and there’s nothing wrong with that (just like there’s nothing wrong with being interested in every girl in the bar on dollar doubles night).

If a girl accepts your invitation to formal, the idea of hooking up with you obviously has crossed her mind. If girls contemplate every little detail of what they wear to class, who her sorority sister is talking to, and basically every text message she’s ever sent and received, then she has definitely taken two seconds out of her day in between painting and priming that cooler of yours to ponder the question of whether or not the prospects of hooking up with you are on the table.

Maybe you should leave worrying about whether or not she’ll hook up with you to every other weekend in college and enjoy formal for what it is—a chance to make some great memories with your bros that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

That way, if you don’t hook up, you won’t really care because you had a rowdy time anyway, but if you do hook up, it’s just another story from a great formal.