It`s a concept your parents love to love: The date is dead; long live the group. Let`s hear it for bunch fun. A cool contingent of teenagers cruising the malls, invading the movies, party-hopping from house to house.
Evidence to comfort parents appears to be everywhere as gaggles of teenagers regularly invade public spaces. But talk to young people themselves, those veterans of lockers rooms and powder rooms, and it is clear that parents are only half-right.
Groups are ”fun-er,” proclaims Linda Perez, 16, as her enthusiasm drives her into a verbal corner. A senior at Whitney M. Young High School, Perez is a member of a group that includes four girls and a boy, her best friend.
”The more the merrier,” says Perez. ”Two people run out of things to say to each other.”
Groups are a major part of the social scene, particularly as teens enter high school and begin getting driver`s licenses. The lucky duck with the license becomes the focus of a group, sailing forth with his or her friends, male and female, in tow.
Groups usually begin as a comfortable car-full-four to six people. Or, possession of a mini-van means 10 or so can ride together to school sports events or a round of parties.
Then the bunches swirl, join, merge and divide like fundamentalist congregations around charismatic preachers. Two carloads may decide to meet. A group of guys may go out with a group of girls from one neighborhood one night and another the next night.
Group fun satisfies the modern teenager for all sorts of reasons. ”It`s easier to get out of the house if I`m with a group,” confesses Perez.
”There are definitely pressures with girls-you don`t know how to act,”
notes Edward Murphy, 18, a June graduate of New Trier High School. ”But you don`t have those pressures within the group.”
And then there`s the simple need to be out on the town in some fashion every Friday and Saturday night. ”There`s a lot of pressure just to go out,” Murphy adds. ”No one wants to be known as a lame-o.”
Groups also emphasize a liberated social role for girls. ”Guys and girls are more equal now. Girls aren`t carried around on pillows,” says Christina Kelly, 18, also a recent graduate of New Trier.
A boy friend, not boyfriend
And parents love to hear it. ”My (17-year-old) daughter has friends who are boys,” says Donna Davies of Evanston. ”I didn`t when I was in high school. You either dated them or they weren`t there.”
”The groups help them with their development by having to interchange and make decisions with a lot of people, not one-on-one,” says George Jennett of Chicago, whose 18- and 20-year-old sons graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep. The groups ”are also a safety factor when you grow up in a city like Chicago,” he adds.
Bunch fun is usually cheap fun, too. When a group meets up, the girls usually have about $5 in their pockets and the guys $5 to $10. By contrast, a dinner date, even for pizza or Chinese, costs an easy $30 and a movie adds another $15 plus.
Within the group, ”whoever has money pays,” says Christina Kelly. ”We pay some nights, the guys pay some.”
One reason group events are inexpensive is that the chief entertainment is a series of house parties fluid enough to give a Washington hostess hives. A good party has at least 30 people (no parents), but no set guest list. The host invites some people directly; others just hear about the event and drop in to meet, greet, dance to tapes or CDs and drink.
Going steady
But under the surface of modern groupism is a bedrock of the traditional. Teenagers long for-and have-one-on-one, meet-the-parents dates. Some go steady, although the condition is referred to as ”going out.” And there`s a fair amount of sexual activity, from ”scamming” or heavy petting to regular intercourse.
And, as teens progress through high school, they appear to pair off more and more. Lucius Jennett, 20, a junior at Morehouse College in Atlanta, says that when he was at St. Ignatius in Chicago, he traveled in groups, but that within the bunch, couples usually paired off. ”Nobody felt left out,” he adds.
While groups and playing the dating field are tolerable, one special person is best, say several teens. ”I dated around for a long time, and I thought it was kind of useless,” says Ellen Keller. ”I didn`t like them, and they spent money on me. I was glad to find one person.”
Even Linda Perez-a free spirit who says she calls a guy for a date when someone attracts her (”I just take that deep breath and do it”)-sort of envies her friends who have steadies.
”It takes a lot of the pressure off, and they seem happy. Who doesn`t want to be happy?” she asks.
At high schools dominated by Hispanics, such as Benito Juarez in Chicago`s Pilsen neighborhood, pairing off is the norm. ”At Juarez, the guys don`t even really ask you on a date,” says Julia Gamez, 17, who graduated in June. ”They just ask you right away to be their girlfriend. Hispanics think differently than others.
”You go out with a guy, and you can`t see anybody else, you can`t talk to anybody else. He really takes rank over you; you belong to him.”
As they pair off, teenagers practice courtship pretty much as it has been done over recent decades, with a fillip of feminism thrown in.
Girls do sometimes call guys now, but, says Lucius Jennett, ”not to ask you out so much as to get to know you.”
Girls do offer to pay for at least half of a date sometimes, but guys still pay most of the time.
”I`m sort of old-fashioned,” says Jennett, using an adjective several fellows applied to the same subject. ”I take a girl on a date, and I pay.”
However, Ellen Keller says she often offers to pay when she`s been dating a boy for a while, adding, ”I don`t think it`s right for him to pay all the time.”
But her current beau insists on footing the bill all the time now and, she says, ”it does feel good.”
Take a deep breath
Guys admit they get a jolt out of picking up a girl and meeting her parents. ”Maybe it`s to score some points. But it`s also fun to see how a girl`s family works,” says Glenn Abell.
”Of course, I`m nervous as hell,” he adds. ”I wonder what the mom thinks. Then the big dad comes in and pushes you for a while. It`s really easy with the mom-I can be witty with the mom. The dad is a little harder; it`s harder to joke with them. They make sarcastic jokes, and you don`t know if they mean it.”
So, what should a high school freshman worry about as he or she gains the freedom of a car and the bonds of a group or a date? Seniors from this year and last have some tips:
– Glenn Abell: If you`re a guy, ”always have a good group of guy friends first.”
– Julia Gamez: ”It`s really important to be yourself. A lot of people fear that other people will think badly of them if they don`t have a boyfriend, but even freshmen should keep themselves in mind.”
– Christina Kelly: ”Don`t try so hard. I`ve seen freshmen girls go to tanning salons and get really tan and then wear off-the-shoulder outfits. They don`t need to do that.”
– Edward Murphy: ”Don`t get too caught up in what the group wants to do. People keep drinking because that`s what everyone else is doing. People smoke when they really don`t want to.”
– Lucius Jennett: ”People should pair off, but go out with as many people as you can first. Then you`ll know what you like and what you don`t like.”
– Ellen Keller: ”Pick your guy wisely. Nowadays it`s hard to trust just anyone.”
– Linda Perez: ”The pressure to have sex is hard. It`s like if you want to keep them you`ve got to do something to keep them. But I tell them, `If I`m not worth the waiting, then you`re not worth the taking.”`
