Regardless of whether we like to admit it or not we follow particular attitudes, patterns, and behaviors just like other animals in the world. This includes a reaction to each season of the year. You know how most animals choose to mate during spring because of the weather, or how bears and other species hibernate during the winter. Well, we’re not that different, and here lies the core of cuffing season. So, now that fall is already here, you might want to pay closer attention to this, just in case.
There are tons of new words to define today’s relationships attitudes: benching, ghosting, even zombieing. So when I read the term cuffing season I thought it was just an elaborate term for a determined sexual relationship or something like that. I mean what else could it mean? But, in fact, this term is related to the natural instinct of mating. Just as it happens with most animals, seasons change our reproductive behavior. Of course, we can choose whether to have children or not, but primal instincts push us to act in many different ways depending on the season. So, as you might have guessed, cuffing season refers to the impulse of having a partner to be with during the cold winter.
I know it sounds awful, but if you think about it, it has some sort of logic when you see it as a natural response. Yes, there are mean people who deliberately look for others to have a nice time and then dispose of them, or there’s also the famous benching, when you’re someone else’s backup plan. But cuffing is more related to an unconscious attitude that’s more common in men, although not exclusive of them. According to a poll published in 2015 by the dating app Hinge, men are more likely to look for “serious” relationships during fall and winter than women. So, if that person you like all of the sudden starts paying way more attention to you in this season, maybe they’re just responding to the instinct to endure winter.
Of course, there’s evolution and all animals adapt to it, but there are certain traits that never fade. For instance, certain breeds of dogs that are closer to their wolf ancestry still have a wild behavior, no matter how domesticated they are (just take a look at Huskies for example). In the same way, cuffing is not a reaction to extreme weather conditions or a consequence of feeling threatened by the weather. It’s how our inner life cycle responds to the environment.
The term was added to the Urban Dictionary in 2011, and of course, as it happens with most of these modern relationship terms, there aren’t many serious studies to back them up. In that entry, they explain what we kind of know out of experience: that cold weather triggers certain emotions in us like loneliness and melancholy, so our primitive brain starts looking for something to calm those emotions and, well, what better way than love? However, it’s important to know that, although there might be many cases where cuffing season develops into a real, serious, everlasting relationship, there are others where that need or urge to be with someone melts like the snow with the coming of spring.
According to Marina Khorosh, author of the DBag Dating Blog, spring and summer are the seasons in which most people engage in casual relationships, but during fall and winter many couples are formed. So, if you’re feeling that need for someone to spend the holidays with, Khorosh explains that the most common date to do so is during Halloween parties. Who knows? Perhaps the guy in the football player costume is the one who’ll help you endure the inclemencies of winter.
As one last piece of advice, know beforehand what you’re looking for and what you’re expecting in a relationship. If you’re with someone and things don’t go as expected (of course being reasonable and logic), the best thing is to stop it before it’s too late. I do think that in most failed relationships, both parties have certain responsibility. In this particular case, if you think you’re being used for cuffing season, put it all out on the table and talk about it. You’re just in time. Since it’s not actually something most people realize, it’s also important to build the foundations of your relationship from scratch and on true facts, not on the illusions that these seasons create.
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Images by @chrisandruth
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