10 Top Tips on How to Embrace Being Single during Cuffing Season

As we dive headfirst into autumn, equipped with slightly worn scarves, Mazzy Star playing through headphones and once again plagued by a rebound with the inescapable ex of Freshers Flu, it becomes increasingly harder to avoid one’s singleness. With relationships rekindled under the warmness of an illegally lit candle in an overpriced and under-heated student house, love is all around (who knew, Hugh Grant was right). It’s the season of baking, woolly socks, of Norah Jones and, for the sake of matching surnames, Bridget Jones too - aka “cuffing season.” 

A desire becomes more prevalent during these seasons: the desire to latch onto a slightly failed situationship or to delude oneself into the belief that romance is deeply necessary to survive until the end of the year. But what does this desire actually stem from? When did cuffing season become a phrase, and what does it actually mean? 

“Cuffing” has, in more recent years, been attributed to the “period of the year (typically the colder months of autumn and winter) when it is considered especially desirable to enter into a romantic relationship” - significant enough to be in the Oxford English Dictionary, so pretty widely known then. It has become rather fashionable: writers, directors, anyone with an audience plays to its psychology. During this time, romantic literature is sourced and devoured; a summer of “Brat” turns to an autumn of slow jazz, as the “frazzled English women” aesthetic grows in popularity and fashion trends adhere to the likes of Sandra Bullock in ‘While You Were Sleeping’, Kate Winslet in ‘The Holiday’ and Keira Knightley in ‘Love Actually’ - the list goes on. 

But what to do when cuffing season comes along and one is in fact, not cuffed…? 

Here’s what I would recommend: 

1. First and foremost, under no circumstances must one return to a romantic interest of a former season. It’s never worth it and quite frankly, there is no rational reason to defrost the relationship again. 

   
   

2. Spend time with your friends. It really is true that they are the main love interests of your life.

   
   

3. Watch an unhealthy amount of comfort tv (it helps to have a duvet with you as well). 

   
   

4. Find a hobby. Crafts are fun. Baking too. Maybe even try a sport (I wouldn’t know - but  those who regularly exercise do always appear to have their life much more sorted). 

   
   

5. Book a spontaneous trip. Go to the place you’ve always envisioned you and your future partner would go to. The trip will most probably be improved by removing the romantic interest and just going alone.

   
   

6. If you fail to follow tip No.1, perhaps try out something new. Therapy maybe. An ice cold sea dip always helps reconnect with nature. 

   
   

7. Read a book and live vicariously through someone else. That way you can avoid reality entirely, experience the joys of cuffing season and suffer no real consequences.  

   
   

8. Go to bed earlier. Everything always seems slightly more lonely at night and I fear tip No.1 will be harder to do as the night goes on, and tip No.6 is equally much less obtainable. A sea swim at night in the middle of winter is actually much more life-threatening than therapeutic. 

   
   

9. Call your Mum, she always knows what’s best. If you can’t call yours, call mine. She’d happily give you some slightly insulting, incredibly humbling, and completely necessary advice. 

   
   

10. Either way, whether you are single or in a relationship that we all silently resent and envy you for, remember: these seasons are ultimately for hibernation and a time to recharge. Have endless cosy days and don’t stress too much about the societal pressures of how to spend them.