Have you heard about #cuffingseason?

Monday 28 November 2022

Are you familiar with the phrase that a significant other isn’t just for Christmas? Well, now you have. You’re welcome. This special festive edition of Have You Heard is all about a seasonal phenomenon in the world of dating.

Have you heard about #cuffingseason?

This describes people’s inclination to couple up in short-term relationships that literally last one season. They get ‘cuffed’ as the weather gets colder and then, as soon as the season moves from Winter to Spring, they get ‘uncuffed’.

Ahh, there’s no image more romantic than comparing one’s relationship to being cuffed to that other person, am I right? So sweet. Brings a tear to my eye.  

Pictured: Have you heard about #cuffingseason?

Now, who among us could deny loving that particular kind of festive movie where the charismatic female lead can’t think of anything worse than being single for the holidays; especially when she has to visit her judgmental family who are always asking her when she’s going to settle down instead of just focusing on her career like a WEIRDO. 

So, instead of just exercising healthy boundaries with her loved ones and ask that they respect her life choices, she concocts a cunning ploy to take a slightly rough around the edges, but eligible, bachelor (best friend, bartender, the cute guy from the mail room, perhaps a lumberjack with a heart of gold) back to her hometown for Christmas where he will pose as her boyfriend to finally get her mum off her case. But the ploy works too well and they (after a series of awkward scenarios) eventually discover the greatest gift of all: love.  

Pictured: Fancy getting #cuffed to a 'lumberjack with a heart of gold?'

Phew.  

Well (according to the rules of #cuffingseason) that goofy, unreasonably good-looking, chalk-and-cheese couple will in all likelihood have parted ways after Valentine’s Day rolls around. 

Now, I get why this is a thing. There is a lot of pressure from mainstream media to be in a relationship over the holidays (preferably with someone hunky, who melts your hard-nosed exterior and teaches you that it’s okay to be vulnerable again, even if that does mean abandoning your high-powered career in publishing, and opening up a bakery in your small hometown in the middle of nowhere). 

Pictured: "There is a lot of pressure from mainstream media to be in a relationship over the holidays."

There is probably some deep-rooted evolutionary instinct that means we seek partnerships during colder weather (she surmised without even a single jot of research), but I have a much more cynical theory about why #cuffingseason is a thing – CAPITALISM. It always comes back to cold, hard cash. What happens when you’re in a relationship over the holidays? You most likely have to buy them PRESENTS over the festive period and then you have to do something for Valentine’s Day as well.

If you’re planning on cuffing up with someone for the colder months, my money saving hack would be to get in early in the non-occasion-filled portion of the season. Couple up in early September, enjoy dressing sexy with them for Halloween, break up with them at the bonfire in early November and then you’ll be over them by the time Christmas rolls around. Then you can spend all your money on yourself instead.

Merry #cuffingseason to all, and to all, a good night!

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This column first appeared in the special Christmas and New Year edition of Connect Magazine, which you can read in full below...