With cuffing season swiftly approaching, plenty of people are thinking ahead to the chillier months.
For the uninitiated, cuffing season is the stretch between October and February, where it seems like anyone and everyone is coupling up. Getting cuffed can have its advantages, like having someone to cuddle with on those long winter nights, not showing up to holiday activities alone and someone else to give you presents.
Still, that doesn’t mean everyone is interested. Personally, romantic relationships have never really seemed to be in the cards for me. I’ve always preferred devoting my time and energy to my friends, making sure they’re happy, healthy and loved.
That isn’t to say that I never dabble in dating though. This past October, I took my first forays into dating apps and as more experienced women than I can tell you, that is a beast that requires a certain amount of patience and finesse.
As someone who just started dating at 22, one of the biggest issues seems to lie with communication (shocker, I know). I’m not sure what I’m looking for so I have about as much success as you’d think trying to explain my intentions to someone else. Do I want a hookup? A fling? To be cuffed? Who knows? I certainly don’t.
I’m not the only one having this problem either.
According to a September 2016 study conducted by YouGov, 51 per cent of people surveyed under 30-years-old said their ideal relationship was a fully monogamous one.
What does this mean? It seems that more and more people are willing to entertain the idea of a relationship that involves more than the standard couple.
Still, there’s a certain stigma around wanting anything other than strict monogamy, especially for women. Even knowing I don’t want a long-term commitment, I still feel pressured into being ambiguous about my intentions.
I do this mainly, to be blunt, to avoid being treated like a piece of meat by any would-be suitors.
This demonstrates another major issue I’ve noticed with dating today: people assume short-term relationships (flings, hookups, one night stands and the like) are intrinsically inferior to committed long-term relationships. This leads to short-term partners being treated worse and with far less respect because hey, they’re not going to be around that long anyway, right?
There isn’t just one person to blame for this attitude, either. Movies and television teach us that marriage and children are the romantic goals to aspire to. Characters who set out to have only flings are selfish, conceited and immature (see: Tony Stark, Barney Stinson and every character Charlie Sheen has ever played).
On the whole, society looks at successful relationships as ones that last forever because if your relationship is working, why would it end? But I don’t think it’s that simple.
Short-term relationships allow you to get out of your comfort zone and engage with new people in a shorter time frame, which can foster more intense intimacy. One of my favourite films, Two Night Stand, starring Miles Teller and Analeigh Tipton, revolves around two young people who have a one-night stand and promptly get snowed in together. Forced to discuss their night together, the couple find it easier to frankly air their grievances about each other’s failings in bed because they know they’ll never see each other again.
Of course it’s a rom-com so you can imagine how that plays out but the sentiment has stuck with me since my first viewing. It can actually be easier to be honest with someone you don’t know very well. You don’t have to worry about damaging a relationship that you’re not convinced will be around much longer. As long as you don’t take that as an excuse to abuse the other party, everyone can come out looking at themselves in a new light.
As for my own personal experience, I spent a month last year becoming intensely close to a Tinder match. Though we mainly interacted through texts and only met once before our connection fizzled out, it taught me more about what I want in a relationship than I would’ve imagined.
Comparing my own month-long infatuation with my friend’s year-long relationship both ended in tears. I would be willing to wager I learned roughly the same amount about myself as she did and my heartbreak recovery time was shorter. Perhaps that sounds a little callous but at the end of the day, the only person who is definitely coming with you into and out of any relationship is yourself.
It’s important to not only treat your partner, no matter how long they’re in your life, with respect and compassion, but also don’t forget to afford that same kindness to yourself.
At the end of the day, I probably don’t understand love and romance any more than you do (unless you’re a professional, in which case, I could probably use your help).
Instead of letting my inexperience make me timid, I’m learning being lost and vulnerable is the one thing all of us have in common. We want to love people and we want people to love us in return. Love is so rare and beautiful and it’s not worth it to force it into a box.