In a recent group text, I asked my friends whether or not they were familiar with the term cuffing season. I had stumbled across the word while reading an article on the subway and had no idea what it meant, so I immediately worried I was growing old and out of touch. “Cuffing . . . sounds like something sexually aggressive,” one of them wrote. The rest drew a blank. I later learned that cuffing season is actually the period of time between fall and the dead of winter when people start searching for someone with whom they can spend the those long, frigid months. After I illuminated my group text, one friend wrote: “I was not familiar with the exact term, but I definitely know what you’re talking about.”
While the term cuffing season was introduced back in 2011—at least on Urban Dictionary—it seems that the concept really started to take off only in the last year. (If you’re still wondering why it’s called cuffing, it’s a derivative of “handcuffing,” because you’re essentially chaining yourself to another person through the season.) “It sounds so animalistic,” said a coworker. “Do people really do this?”
As it turns out, yes, they really do. The dating app Hinge recently polled 1,000 of its active users, and asked at which months they are most interested in finding a casual hookup, a date, or a relationship. They found that men are 15 percent more likely to be looking for a relationship in the winter than any other season, while women are 5 percent more interested in something more committed during those months. In the spring and summer, men are 11 percent less likely to want a relationship, whereas women are 5 percent less likely (hence the term summer fling). As my college friend once deadpanned: “There’s no need to be gentle in the summer, as it’s just a rental.”
I asked Marina Khorosh, the writer behind the blog DBag Dating, for her take on the phenomenon. Khorosh became aware of cuffing season after wondering out loud to a group of girlfriends why she was suddenly and urgently craving a boyfriend. “While I don’t find cuffing season to be the most romantic of concepts,” she said, “I do admit that it’s a good temporary solution for those residing in northern climates, where the Polar Vortex cuts off social interactions for extended time periods.” But what about those who live in a place where it can be chilly year round? Virginia, who lived in Bogotá, Colombia, where the weather is around 50 degrees on average, said that, in her personal experience, those residents seemed to be more monogamous. “Everybody is always in a relationship in Bogota,” she told me by phone.
So when’s the best time to find a cuffing-season mate? “Summer is when you’re looking for that winter beau,” one of our fashion editors said. “I like to get a head start. That and the fact that I have to travel for the month of September during Fashion Week season.” After a recent roundtable discussion with a few girlfriends, we hypothesized that the window for finding a cuff buddy runs from Halloween weekend until Thanksgiving. Where better to find your next Netflix-and-chill partner than at a Halloween party? This way, you have a few weeks to decide whether that person is worthy of binge-watching season one of Narcos with you. And locking down your beau before Thanksgiving means you can have your pumpkin pie—and extra turkey leg, too—and not have to worry about scrambling to find your New Year’s Eve date. (A number of faux calendar seasons have started to pop up online as well. The exact dates are still up for debate.)
