Considering how much of the discussion on here is dedicated to sex and sexuality as a strong priority for both casual dating and later leading to serious relationships, a lot of people seem out of touch with How uncommon it is for something casual to actually evolve into anything real. I want to clarify that I use the term casual sex just to loosely describe anything sexual that happens prior to knowing a person or having expressed any sincere romantic interest in them personally, so this includes the often mentioned scenario of people sincerely looking for a long term thing but assuming someone isnt worth their time or has no potential for not sleeping with them on the first date.

The thing is let's say you do like each other but only as much as two essentially strangers can. Just sort of, after all you don't know much about each other. (let's say for arguments sake that they're a woman because it's often RPer guys making this argument) If she does decide to hook up with you at this point, it's pretty unlikely she'll want to keep seeing you afterwards and it's pretty obvious why. Casual sex often communicates just how little a person means to you at this point, you barely know them, they're just a body to you. Why would anyone feel any interest in you after being seen this way? I've personally found that the moment something sexual and casual happened between me and someone, I never saw any romantic potential between us. It's hard to unthink the idea of how they were able to treat you and your body as just meat.

It's a very messy way to start things when you essentially take something that is often seen as wildly romantic and intimate between couples, and twist it into a meaningless sort of exchange. It sort of robs that thing of ever really being anything more.

Hook ups rarely lead to relationships because it goes exactly against what they're for. If I was starting to like a guy and then tried to hook up too soon into knowing him, I'd feel I'd sabotaged something potentially special between us by turning it into something meaningless.

I've seen more than a couple comments complaining about women who take things slow with someone special and how it's pointless but it does have its merit in building trust and meaning