Although our emotional response to a one-night stand varies from person to person, it is important to know that ‘catching feelings’ is a normal response to sexual intimacy, and nothing to be ashamed of.
The infamous ‘one-night stand’ almost seems to be a right of passage in the college experience, but is it normal to feel attached to someone after a brief sexual encounter?
How we feel about our sexual partners can be understood to some extent by examining the role of our neurochemical underpinnings in how we feel. During sex, our brains release the chemical oxytocin, also known as the "love hormone", which affects men and women differently. In women, oxytocin stimulates emotional bonding and intensifies feelings of pleasure, promoting closeness and trust with their partner. In men, oxytocin reinforces sexual motivation and reward, promoting sexual bonding. This difference in bonding is what often leads to the tumultuous situations created by a one-night stand. However, these situations are also heavily impacted by our personal circumstances. To really determine if you can "catch feelings" from a one-night stand, we have to look at the motivations, social implications, and context of this experience alongside the biological aspects.
Hook up culture tends to oversimply sexual interactions as just “casual sex”, when it is often far more nuanced than that.
Although one-night stands can often be with someone you’ve just met, they can also be with a friend or someone with whom you share familiarity and trust, or maybe that one person in your course that you’ve had a crush on all year. The relationship between you and your sexual partner can bring up all sorts of emotions: excitement, hope, curiosity, vulnerability, self-consciousness, and more. Whether it’s someone you know, or someone you’ve just met, one-night stands are founded on physical, emotional and intellectual attraction, which is also an important aspect of ‘catching feelings’ for someone.
For some people, a one-night stand is just that: a one and done situation. But what if you don’t fall into this category? What if you really liked their personality, only for them to not respond to your text the next day? The circumstances of a one-night stand may cause us to ruminate on the person, rethinking, replaying and fantasizing about the encounter. This can bring up feelings of doubt, disappointment, and insecurity, that may make a brief encounter spiral into an emotional infatuation.
Attachment theory can help us understand why people may have different emotional responses to a one-night stand. Attachment theory refers to how people think and behave in relationships. People with an anxious attachment style tend to fear abandonment and rejection, and so the ‘one and done’ element of a one-night stand may be emotionally triggering. On the other hand, people with an avoidant attachment style might fear the emotional intimacy arising from the experience and thus become guarded and distant.
Although our emotional response to a one-night stand varies from person to person, it is important to know that ‘catching feelings’ is a normal response to sexual intimacy, and nothing to be ashamed of.