Cuffing Season, Couple Privilege & Other C-Words
A few weeks ago I was asked to do a podcast, the topic of the week being “The Do’s and Don’ts of Cuffing Season.” Immediately, I felt disgust rise up inside me at the thought of cuffing season and the toxic ideals attached to that term. When I got some thoughts together, I took to the internet to hear out some opinions. Where I expected to find blog posts and TikTok videos about outgrowing this cultural phenomenon, I saw stress, panic, and an actual cuffing season schedule.
I hadn’t realized how seriously people still take it, so much so that some of the advice out there goes so far as to suggest how to budget for cuffing season and offers pointers on planning dates around the NFL season schedule (Go Bills). The fact is, cuffing season is an intrinsic part of the zeitgeist.
I thought back to college when I performed Act III of La Boheme and realized the idea of cuffing season actually goes back that far! In this opera, the two main characters, who are fated to part, decide to stay together through the winter until the springtime when “no one feels truly alone.” The term first appeared on UrbanDictionary in 2010, and yearly internet trends support its continuation. According to The Guardian (2019), there are over 60,000 mentions of the term “cuffing season” in the first ten days of October. We are inundated with memes & messaging all directing us to follow suit and boo up with the nearest tolerable warm body.
Posted by “The Millennial Love Expert: Licensed Therapist & Coach.”
If we’re going to participate, I hope we can do so mindfully. I have a lot to say here and I want to say it with as little of that disgust inside me as possible because the truth is, I totally get it. I’ve been single & dating & half-heartedly participating in cuffing season in NYC for the better part of ten years. And it is hard AF.
It is always totally valid to want a relationship, especially when the weather starts to cool down, and especially after enduring the winter of 2020 (yes, your pandemic panic is normal). When the weather changes, our biology changes along with it. Our testosterone goes up and our serotonin goes down, and the easiest way to counteract those biological changes is with intimate connection. We also have a biological human need for closeness & belonging which Brené Brown classifies as a “primal yearning.” Add to all of that the societal pressure we feel around this time of year. Will I have someone to take cute fall photos with? Will I spend cold winter nights curled up with a person or in the fetal position with my cat & my feelings? What will I say at the holidays when my family asks “So, are you still single?” There is a critical focus on singledom in our culture (more on this later) that is consistently feeding us the message “DON’T BE A SINGLE LOSER,” and it’s a lot of work to constantly defend against that and live in whatever your truth is.
So, after all the preamble, these are my Do’s & Don’ts of Cuffing Season:
DO:
define boundaries that you feel secure about
Before diving into the deep end of dating season, it’s important to establish what boundaries feel good for you. This includes COVID safety, your screening process for deciding who you want to meet IRL, when you’re comfortable kissing or getting physical with someone, the type(s) of relationship(s) you’re interested in having, etc. The more confident you are in your boundaries, the more clearly you can communicate them to people. Feeling confident & secure about the boundaries we set frees us from feeling pressure to adjust to others’ needs. For example: if you want to have a FaceTime date before meeting someone out in the world, and they make you feel weird or silly for having that boundary, you can feel confident in hitting that unmatch button because you deserve to have your well-considered & clearly defined boundaries respected.
Our boundaries help us create the optimal conditions for us to give and receive love, and isn’t that the point?
Be up front about your intentions & set a precedent for good communication
A lot of people (myself included) like to know what they’re signing up for. If everyone is on the same page, we can live more presently and have fun! Ask what kind of relationships people are looking for and be honest in return. If it feels hard to say “I’m looking for something casual through the winter,” ask yourself why that might be. If it feels way too vulnerable to say “I’m looking to date with the intention of finding something long term,” ask yourself if that’s something you’re really ready for. This moment is often the first opportunity to offer a real feeling or desire, so use it to set the standard of communication in your partnership.
In the words of Will Smith “If you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.” That’s how I feel about communication. If you’re always communicating your feelings & needs, you never have to worry about blindsiding your partner with them. There is no boiling point when you can’t keep your feelings bottled up anymore but don’t know if your partner can handle or hold any of them because you've never tried expressing them.
consider what you’re prioritizing
(Hint: the answer we’re looking for is yourself.)
Are you looking for a relationship or a warm body? Do you want to share & experience life with someone, or are you too afraid to be alone with yourself? Your relationship with yourself is the most important one you will ever have. If you feel a void, you can find ways to fill it from within rather than relying on always having someone else around in order to feel complete & comfortable. Try out new hobbies, pursue passions you’ve never given yourself time to explore, take your beautiful energy out in the world and learn to enjoy your own company. I have learned to love myself so deeply during cuffing seasons I spent alone rather than settling for spending a few months with the sexy DJ who never asked me a question about myself or the brilliant professor whose apartment was so dirty I refused to go over there.
Or, find yourself a fun & trustworthy FWB or casual situationship and stay warm this winter by getting it on!
When you reach a high level of self-prioritization, life becomes exceedingly more pleasurable. Your focus turns to filling your experience of life with people & things that provide you with the feelings that make you most settled in your body. It’s not always easy, but it’s a journey worth taking. This brings me to my first…
DOn’t:
Assume being alone = being lonely
I remember being a bartender in my early 20s and meeting women who would come in for dinner alone and tell me that they’re “dating themselves.” Looking back, I realize that I felt pity for them. Now, I am one of those people who would prefer to have a nice dinner alone rather than over laborious conversation with a bad date. I am one of those people who dated myself (and continue to), found myself, and learned to accept & love myself. The time I spend with myself is some of my most precious, and the reconnection to myself & my Inner Child has helped “cure” my loneliness. In the words of RuPaul “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
An often bubble-bursting truth is that a romantic relationship is not a cure for loneliness. Redefining intimacy & romance opens us up to so many enriching connections & experiences, and has allowed me to share romance & love with my friends in a new way. Our social messaging tells us that romance is only for our romantic partners, and intimacy means having sex. It’s just not true! I suggest you read the blog post from one of my favorite friends to date & fellow coach Crystal O’Connor on Dating Your Friends (our first date was at a bath house in Brooklyn so we live what we preach).
My mother used to say “be intimate with” when referring to sex. Intimacy is much too big to fit in one box labeled “For Sex.” Trust me, I love its place in that box, but intimacy means so much more. Intimacy is understanding why your friend has trouble taking criticism. Intimacy is someone you trust reaching out and helping you hold & care for your Inner Child when you’re overwhelmed. Intimacy is friends laughing together at a shared joke or sending texts at the exact same time. Intimacy is understanding & caring for each other’s nervous systems. Intimacy is taking some prepared food over to a friend when you know they’re going through hard times. Intimacy is the space we hold for the people we love. Intimacy is the depth at which we can connect with someone and come to understand them & love them, and in turn understand & love ourselves more deeply.
We tend to think of being single as a matter of being alone rather than a matter of choosing the types of relationships we want to be in — including the relationship we have with ourselves.
Esther Perel
ignore red flags or lower your standards
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: our bodies are constantly communicating with us, and that includes our intuition. I know we’ve all ignored red flags, pretended things don’t bother us, and put up with dealbreakers; I usually chalk this up to singles panic and/or people-pleasing. So often we approach dating from the perspective of “how can I fit into this person’s life” when we should really be asking ourselves if they fit into our life. And do you actually enjoy spending time with this person? Listen to your intuition, and learn to trust yourself.
So, let me say clearly that you should actually LIKE the person you’re spending time with, even if it’s on a La Boheme schedule. Find someone with whom you can co-create a safe, fun, and supportive space to enjoy each other’s company and get your needs met.
Rely on old patterns
It is really hard work recognizing & deviating from patterns that we are accustomed to, even though they may not be serving us. For example, I used to go for unavailable men because I feared rejection (if they were unavailable, they could never really reject me), and because I desired to feel chosen - like I was the pleasure center of someone’s life (if they were in an unhappy relationship or life situation, they would come to me as their outlet for pleasure). (Obviously) Freeing myself from this unhealthy pattern opened me up to scarier & more vulnerable love, which was ultimately a fuller & more connective love.
Cuffing season is an excellent opportunity to date around and meet lots of new people. Try lots of new things. Flirt with some people that you may not normally consider a match. If swiping right on those people fresh from a breakup hasn’t been working for you, switch it up. Swipe on that emotionally available therapist or the dentist who’s a homebody, you might be surprised! Go get hot chocolates and take an afternoon walk around Little Island rather than meeting at a local dive bar at night. Bringing awareness to our patterns allows us to make new choices. Those new choices open us up to worlds of previously undiscovered possibilities.
All this talk about cuffing season kept bringing up another topic that has been on my mind a lot this year:
Couple Privilige
The pressure & stress we often feel when we’re single isn’t reserved for cuffing season. Rather, this time of year serves as a magnifying glass for a societal prioritization of (monogamous) couples that always exists.
The critical focus placed on singles can cause people to second guess their choices, even if they are making an empowered choice to be single in which case they often have to defend their singledom. Just at the most basic level, it is easier for couples to get a mortgage, adopt children, and afford costs of living. Standard legal forms reduce relationships down to married, single, or dead; and there are legal implications around marriage that can preclude unmarried partners from making important life or medical decisions for or with one another.
This is all to say that society paints a very limited picture of what a relationship is and then tries to force is into it. Even I had imposter syndrome around choosing this profession because I haven’t had a traditional long-term romantic relationship. Finally, I realized that I have so much experience building & maintaining other types of long-term relationships that have been deeply important to me; friends, coworkers, bar regulars, industry professionals, local shop owners, baristas, roommates, even long-term FWBs. It was my social conditioning that led me to feel that these were “lesser” forms of relationships, and that’s just not true.
There are less obvious elements of couple privilege that make life more challenging for the Singles out there. Let’s take grocery shopping as an example. Of course it’s easier to have someone to offload the grocery shopping to when you’re busy, and to split the bill for the expense. Now, imagine saying “Can you just grab the essentials,” and having that person bring home milk, eggs, fresh herbs, avocado, kosher dill pickles, string cheese, lemon dill hummus & pita thins, and seltzer; a demonstration that they know exactly what you meant by “the essentials.” That is the experience of being known, understood, and cared for. That is the imperceptible missing element. A single person could download Instacart or hire a personal shopper, but there is no outsourcing for that kind of emotional nourishment.
There is so much comfort & validation in feeling accepted by your partner(s) and chosen every day; in kisses good night, coffee in the morning, a passing pinch on the ass, being told that you have food on your face or a hole in your shirt that you can’t see.
Of course there are always two (or more) sides, and many coupled people I’ve spoken to about couple privilege tell me “the grass is always greener” or “you’re so lucky, I miss when I was single.” On the other side of Singledom is compromise, stepping up when you don’t necessarily want to, hard conversations, pet peeves, fractures & repairs, and the not-always-so-sexy banalities of life that become shared. This context often means that when people reflect on their own Singledom, they yearn for the freedoms & joys of a past version of their life. They look back fondly at effortlessly & guiltlessly flirting with strangers at bars, at the lack of impediment in their daily routine, and their ability to focus solely on their own needs.
With all of that freedom & independence, we Singles have an opportunity. We have the opportunity to root our self-esteem, confidence, and sense of security in our own internalized self-love, self-compassion, and self-worth. In her seminal book Polysecure, Jessica Fern notes that many people rely on traditional relationship structures (ie living together, marriage, monogamy, etc) not only to feel secure in the relationship itself, but to assuage our personal insecurities. The truth is, co-signing a piece of paper is not the thing that keeps people together through stretch marks, adult acne, or your “laundry day” underwear.
Learning to love ourselves is hard work, but it’s work worth doing. And it’s okay to feel not okay about it every day. And it’s okay that our partners do help us feel okay about our bellies or morning breath. It’s also important to know that when we can’t get the external validation that we crave, we can always go inside and validate ourselves in how fucking amazing & special we are. And there will be times after you’ve fallen in love with yourself that it’s still hard to be strong & self-validate. Because loving yourself feels different than being loved.
This is a huge focus of the work I do with my clients. While “all sexy, all the time” would be fun, laying a foundation of self-acceptance & love is essential to cultivating intimate relationships with anyone else. Vulnerability brings us closer to each other, and is only impactful if it’s rooted in truth & authenticity. We have to be deeply in touch with ourselves in order to open ourselves to being deeply known by another.
That being said, there are certain essential physical experiences that we cannot give ourselves, which brings me to the last two C-Words of the day. Number one is…
Co-Regulation
I could do a whole post just about this topic, so I’ll keep it concise. At its most basic level, co-regulation describes the process of two nervous systems becoming attuned to one another. Co-regulation is why we feel a shift in the vibe of a room, or yawn right after someone else, or feel happy when we laugh with friends.
Co-regulation between parents & children is what fosters their deeply bonded relationships and forms the building blocks for children to learn how to self-regulate & self-soothe as they grow up. This can look like naming feelings, being held & using body calming techniques, breathing together, and much more. Individualized, physical nurturing is essential for children to be able to form bonds which are necessary for human survival. Without physical co-regulation, babies are unable to feel safe & secure attachment, which can make them less likely to survive infancy.
Sometimes it feels hard to survive adulthood without co-regulation, too.
When we’re lacking co-regulation, we can start to feel a sense of desperation to have the innate need fulfilled. This can make it feel like the stakes are higher when it comes to dating. It’s easy to shift into a mindset of scarcity because the absence of co-regulation can activate both our trauma responses & our primitive survival responses. And aren’t we always trying to avoid that? It probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyways:
A mindset of desperation & scarcity is not a healthy one when it comes to looking for a compatible partner.
It can be really frustrating. Which is why it’s so important to stay mindful and do what you can to support yourself in this need, even though it’s not something you can fulfill for yourself. A hug from a friend, going to an an (in-person) class - yoga, meditation, pottery, cooking - where you’re in a room with others, sitting at a coffee shop and feeling the energy of the surrounding people; these are all ways of giving yourself small doses of co-regulation when you’re not getting it in full from an attuned person with whom you have secure attachment.
Without it, it’s easy to get stuck in a state of distress causing chronic anxiety, depression, or complete emotional shutdown. Another thing that can really help here is…
Cuddling
The number of health benefits of cuddling is kind of insane. We already know about the biological imperative for touch, which cuddling definitely satisfies (consensually & as you like it). Cuddling raises oxytocin (the bonding hormone) and lowers cortisol (the stress hormone) which creates a lovely environment for our bodies and nervous systems. Cuddling affects nearly everything about being human; mental health, the cardiovascular system, sleep patterns, blood pressure, digestion, the immune system, aids in pain reduction, increases the ability to cope with stress, and it raises our emotional intelligence & ability to attune to people. Oh, and it is the perfect opportunity for physical co-regulation.
Cuddling is also a form of communication. It can communicate trust, connection, belonging, safety, and gratitude to our partners. And it’s an opportunity for our nervous systems to settle in with each other, deepening our connection with our partners.
In order to get the most out of cuddling (or any experience, really), it’s important that it feels just right. Just how we like it. Here are a few pointers to help you get the most out of your cuddle sesh:
Talk About It: What do you like? Is there a part of your body that you don’t like to be held? Maybe you get hot at night and don’t want someone breathing in your face. Or maybe you’re a cuddle monster in your sleep. Do you have chronic pain that causes you to avoid certain positions? Your partner(s) won’t know if you don’t tell them.
Check In: Ask your partner if the way you’re holding them feels good. They may not have thought to say anything and the ask feels very welcoming. Be ready for feedback, and know that it doesn’t mean you’re a bad cuddler if they need a change.
Get Comfortable: Very much related to #2 but I can’t tell you how many people suffer through uncomfortable cuddling. If you’re not feeling cozy with your partners elbow digging into your shoulder or your arm being totally asleep as it lays curled up and dead in the space between you, for the love of pleasure say something. I like my whole head to be on my pillow and a former partner liked to be the big spoon, so he used to slip his arm under my pillow so I wasn’t laying directly on his forearm and that was a great solution for us.
Don’t Force It: If you’re not a cuddler, that’s totally fine! Go as slow as you need to, or not at all. Some people take longer to warm up to the level of intimacy it requires to lay with your face inches apart from someone else’s, and some people may never enjoy it. You’re allowed to have cuddling boundaries.
Switch It Up: Try some new ways of cuddling, holding each other, and experiencing each other’s touch. I like the “leg hug” cuddling position, or sitting between my partners open legs. And I like when my partners lay their heads on my butt. Get creative & curious, and have fun!
From MindBodyGreen’s article about cuddling. Image linked to article.
For all you Singles out there reading this, I know it can feel like “yeah, easier said than done.” There were years when spending cuffing season alone made me feel like a failure. You’re not a failure. Intentional & empowered dating, no matter the season, along with self-prioritization and a commitment to pursuing your needs & pleasure is a great act of generosity towards yourself. And you deserve it.