Cuffing season – when you choose one person with whom to share sex, food, and winter weight gain until the spring – is always a high-anxiety time. The pressure is on to narrow down your dating options and figure out who you can stand (and vice-versa) for the next six months (or however long your state’s cold snap lasts). But this year, cuffing season is even more loaded because of coronavirus.
While it was tough to clamp down on dating apps and hooking up in the spring when the pandemic first surged, at least we could expend some of that excess energy outside. When the country started reopening again in summer, many of us took the calculated risk of meeting people in person again; some brave souls even busted their sex slumps (while wearing face masks, of course). But now, winter is coming, and it’s going to involve hibernation to the umpteenth degree. Say goodbye to patio dining and socially distanced walks on the beach. If you want to stay COVID-19-free (and why wouldn’t you?), you’re going to have to severely limit your socializing and stay home until a vaccine becomes available or the snow melts.
“This cuffing season is set to be the most brutal, panic-driven one in recent history—think the Hunger Games of dating,” Vice reports. Hinge, Tinder, and Bumble have all seen an uptick in usage as daters hustle to find the one with whom they can get through their first-ever quarantined winter.
The only thing worse than having to “hunker down” all winter (as the esteemed Dr. Fauci has implored Americans to do) is having to hunker down alone. Winter is definitely the hardest season to get through sexless, and the pandemic isn’t going to make it any easier. If you’ve been putting off those awkward first dates, it’s time to get busy – or you’re going to be facing a monk-like existence for months on end.
Cover Photo: skynesher (Getty Images)
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