It’s Time To Stop Hooking Up And Start Settling Down

Fall is everyone’s favorite time of year – the leaves are changing colors, the comfy sweaters are being pulled out of the storage boxes that have long since accumulated a layer of dust, and the weather is finally getting colder. But with colder weather also comes a change in mood — it brings about a more melancholy state of being and a desire for more human contact.

Whether you willingly admit to wanting to be wrapped up in a blanket by the fire with someone you’re interested in (or someone you just met while out at a party – this is 2016, let’s be real) and proceed to do cute, couple-y things with, with the possibility of a short-lived relationship to follow or not, there is no denying that cuffing season is upon us.

Urban Dictionary defines “Cuffing Season” as the time when “people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous find themselves along with the rest of the world desiring to be ‘cuffed’ or tied down by a serious relationship. The cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become lonely and desperate to be cuffed.”

While not officially recognized as a legitimate season that can stand alongside ones like spring or summer, this season is very real and it stops at nothing, claiming as many victims as possible before the trend goes out of style just as fast as it appeared, and the hotter months are once again upon us.

All of a sudden, when we reach the time of year that triggers the start of cuffing season, the people of the world, especially us millennials, get the idea in our heads that we need to settle down with someone for the winter.

This need to be “cuffed” strikes such a chord with some people that they are willing to go as far as putting cuffing season applications on their Snapchat stories, in hopes that a potential suitor will one day come along and answer the request.

Call it what you want, but this is the world we live in.

Millennials are no strangers to the idea of the society we live in being driven by hook-up culture. All it takes is a “Wyd” or “Wya?” text and the bait is dropped, perfectly placed for a fish to come along and take it.

First names – let alone last names – are virtually meaningless when sharing moments of intimacy with strangers. It is understood that you do what you need to do, and flee the scene faster than a criminal who is about to get caught.

We become fixated on trying to feel an ounce of passion that we go around and sell ourselves short of what we truly deserve. We take the easy way, the easy person, over someone worth truly fighting for and receiving genuine affection from.

The idea of one-night stands or having a friend with benefits may be enough to quench the thirst for a little while, but when it comes down to it and the space next you is empty and the pillow has gone cold, you’re going to wish you had jumped at the chance to have someone who could fill that space – even if just for a few months – when you had it.

On the surface, cuffing season appears to be an outlandish phenomenon, but digging deeper, you realize it holds potential; potential to turn the tables and eliminate some of those late-night rendezvous, converting them into meaningful encounters with the ones who we commit ourselves to. Whether those encounters are a fling with a new person or a revival fling with someone from the past, people are being taken off the menu faster than we can order.

As much as I hate seeing a couple at a pumpkin patch doing basic, fall-inspired things with each other and posting it all over social media, you can bet that I am sitting behind my phone screen, living vicariously through each and every picture I scroll by.

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t like seeing those things, because they remind me of how painfully single I am, but I still support it. If the wind ever blew in my favor and the chance to “be cuffed” presented itself to me, I definitely would not pass it up.

If you’re like me and it looks like your chances of getting cuffed this season are dismal, we always have next year. As disheartening as it sounds, look on the bright side — we have more time to work on our game.