Cuffing season has always been stressful, but this year, it’s a whole new vibe. In normal times, we would be looking for someone to sleep with multiple times a week, have Netflix marathons and cuddle with, get us a holiday present, and take us for dinner on Valentine’s Day. But this isn’t normal times, and so the dating game has different rules this year.

If you’re just learning about cuffing season for the first time, welcome to the world. The term first appeared in Urban Dictionary in 2011, defined as,” a time during Fall and Winter when people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous find themselves along with the rest of the world desiring to be ‘cuffed’ or tied down by a serious relationship. The cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become lonely and desperate to be cuffed.” This makes complete and total sense to me because the thought of being in a committed relationship is the same as being locked up from the rest of the world.

Even though we’ve all been cuffed to our couches since last March, people are still looking for a significant other to navigate this winter/second wave with.  Normally, cuffing season ends around the first day of spring (March 20, 2021 to be exact), but if there’s anything I’ve learned since this pandemic started, it’s that I have no fucking idea what day it is ever so I don’t think anyone will be checking their calendar to dump someone. It’s literally no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench into dating. Gone are the days of making out with random guys at packed bars and asking them if they’re clean of STI’s. Here are the days where you’re making sure that the guys you’re seeing are wearing masks and that your dates are socially distant. The only thing that I’m more afraid of than getting mono is getting COVID from hooking with a guy that wasn’t even worth it.

This cuffing season, eligible singles aren’t simply looking for someone who they can spend time with in the winter only to ditch them once the temperatures rise, but rather someone who they actually want to spend a lot of time with.  After all, the person who you choose to be cuffed to this year literally might never leave your apartment, so choose wisely.

During the first wave of COVID-19, everyone was busy building their virtual rosters, and with nothing to do, there was a LOT of time to bond by consistent messages, which led to a lot of new (and random) couples, in between everything reopening and shutting back down again. According to experts (aka dating app CEO’s), singles are actually being picky about who they meet IRL. By finding someone who’s presence you actually tolerate, you’re probably more likely to end up dating them, even when it gets warm out and you can see other people.  People may be desperate in quarantine, but I guess some of us aren’t that desperate.

Paul McCartney is Dead

Before there was any conspiracy theory about Avril, before any rumor that the world is run by lizard people or all celebrities are clones, there was the ‘Paul is dead’ urban legend from 1969. The theory alleges that Paul McCartney of The Beatles (or Stella’s dad) died in a car accident on a rainy, stormy night. To spare the public from grief, the star was replaced with the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest. Fans were convinced that the band left clues in their music, like John Lennon saying “I buried Paul” in Strawberry Fields Forever, when he was actually saying “cranberry sauce”.

In an interview in November 1969, McCartney said that he thought the reason that the rumor got started was “because he hadn’t been in the press much.” If people thought I was dead because they hadn’t heard from or about me, there would probably be a different rumor about my death a week.

The roll-out of the vaccines has given all of us hope that we’ll soon be able to dust the cobwebs off our lady parts (or man parts, you do you boo), and go out with hot suitors, but that still won’t be for another few months. At this rate, this cuffing season is never-ending, and so you should expect your ‘quarantine’ bae to become your permanent bae for the foreseeable future.

Images: Giphy