Cuffing season: what it means, and dating through the winter

Cuffing season is slang for the colder months, when single people are said to look for someone to see the winter out with. Dictionaries usually place it between October and Valentine's Day, and the cuff is a handcuff: being tied to one person, at least until spring. The evidence behind it is thin, but the pressures it describes are familiar, and for trans and non-binary people winter can add a few of its own. Here is what the phrase means, where it comes from, and how to date through the cold months without letting the calendar choose for you.

What cuffing season means

Merriam-Webster's slang page defines it as the time of year when single people begin looking for short-term partnerships to pass the colder months. The cuff alludes to handcuffs, and the dictionary adds that the idea is less kinky than it sounds: it is about being connected or tied to another person, the same image as hooking up or getting hitched.

Being cuffed means being in one of those relationships, and cuffing someone means pairing up with them for the season. Refinery29's explainer spells out the appeal: someone to stay in with on cold weekends, and someone to bring to family gatherings so that relatives stop asking why you are still single.

The dates are loose. Merriam-Webster's slang page has the season starting in October and ending just after Valentine's Day, while its longer article on the phrase stretches it from October to March and treats Valentine's Day as its high point. Cleveland Clinic describes it as running from late autumn until the warmer days of spring. Wikipedia specifies that those months apply to the northern hemisphere, which matters if your winter falls in July.

The word short-term carries a lot of weight in these definitions. Cuffing season is rarely about finding the love of your life. It describes company for a particular stretch of the year, not a promise.

Where the phrase comes from

Like a lot of dating slang, it grew out of Black American speech. Merriam-Webster traces the verb cuff to African American English, and its two pages on the phrase describe it slightly differently: close in meaning to hook up in one, committing to someone and entering a relationship in the other. The gap between those two senses is more or less the joke of cuffing season itself.

The full phrase is younger than the verb. According to Merriam-Webster, the earliest recorded print uses come from college newspapers in 2011, after it had already done the rounds as student slang, and Urban Dictionary defined it the same year. That early definition, as quoted by Refinery29, described people who would normally rather be single wanting to be tied down once the weather turned cold.

Music carried it further. The rapper Fabolous put it in the title of a 2013 song, Cuffin Season, which Merriam-Webster says may have helped introduce the phrase to the public at large. Wikipedia notes surges of use on social media in the autumns of 2013 and 2016, and Merriam-Webster credits dating apps with giving the idea a platform.

When the dictionary first wrote about it, the phrase sat in its Words We're Watching column, for words in growing use that had not yet met its criteria for entry. It now has a page of its own in Merriam-Webster's slang section.

Is cuffing season real?

Partly, depending on what you mean by real. Wikipedia's summary is that there is no evidence of a biological basis. Refinery29 describes the evidence as mostly anecdotal and quotes the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, who sees no reason to believe a biological cuffing season exists.

Some patterns do exist. A study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2013 looked at five years of Google searches related to pornography, prostitution and dating websites, and found a six-month cycle with peaks in winter and early summer. Refinery29 also points to Facebook data suggesting that people often change their status to in a relationship between October and February, and that many change it back to single in March. Search trends and status updates are clues, not proof of why anyone pairs up.

The explanations on offer are mostly social. Cleveland Clinic's psychologist Susan Albers links darker, colder evenings to lower mood and loneliness, and Refinery29 points to the run of holiday parties that people would rather not face alone. Long evenings, a pile of invitations and more time indoors are enough to make company look attractive, with or without a hormone to blame.

Why winter can weigh more when you are trans or non-binary

Most cuffing season advice assumes the worst thing about winter is an aunt asking about your love life. For many trans and non-binary people the season carries more than that. Family gatherings can mean a deadname, the wrong pronouns, or a decision about how much of yourself to bring through the door. Writing for The Conversation, Kayden J Schumacher of Coventry University notes that even well-meaning relatives can struggle with a new name, and that some people choose to use a previous name for a day to stay safe, which does not make their identity any less valid.

November adds weight of its own. Trans Awareness Week runs from 13 to 19 November, and Trans Day of Remembrance falls on 20 November, when people remember the trans people killed in anti-trans violence that year, according to GLAAD. It can be a heavy month, and our page on Trans Day of Remembrance has more on its history and on taking part.

None of this means you should not date in winter. It means the wish for a partner can arrive tangled up with other things: wanting an ally at the dinner table, wanting a buffer against a hard month, wanting proof that someone chooses you. Those are ordinary wishes. They are also the moment Susan Albers warns about, when needing someone right now leads people to settle for whoever is convenient and available rather than someone who suits them.

Chosen family matters here. Schumacher points to research linking chosen family to resilience in LGBTQ+ people, particularly at stressful times, and suggests alternatives when home is not safe: an LGBTQ+ holiday event, a video gathering, or traditions of your own.

Decide what you want before the weather does

The most useful advice about cuffing season is the least romantic: know what you are looking for. Cleveland Clinic's list of strategies starts there. Ask yourself whether the wish for a partner appeared out of nowhere when the nights drew in or has been there for a while, and whether you want someone for the season or someone for longer.

Both are fine. A winter fling, agreed as a winter fling, hurts nobody. What causes damage is a mismatch: one person assuming it ends in March while the other, in Albers's example, is buying concert tickets for May or June.

• Say it early. Cleveland Clinic suggests making your expectations clear on your profile if you use an app, or raising them in the first conversations. A line such as looking for something light this winter, or looking for something that lasts, does a lot of filtering on its own.
• Name the relationship. Albers calls this defining the relationship: sitting down together, agreeing what this is, and checking in again as feelings change.
• Plan a few weeks at a time. For a short-term relationship, her advice is not to plan too far ahead.
• Consider the shape as well as the length. If neither of you wants exclusivity, the types of ethical non-monogamy sets out the forms it can take and how to tell which fits.

If you are trans or non-binary, knowing what you want includes knowing how much you want to explain. A season is a short time to spend teaching someone the basics of your life, and some people take that as a reason to date other trans people, at least for now. Is t4t dating worth it? weighs up the trade-offs.

Bringing a date home for the holidays

Meeting the family is where cuffing season jokes tend to end up. Whichever side of the invitation you are on, it is worth thinking through before you say yes.

If you are the one bringing someone

• Tell your hosts who is coming. Cleveland Clinic advises letting people know ahead of time who you are bringing, and thinking about how you introduce them, since the label you choose signals how serious it is.
• Brief your date. If your family may get your name or pronouns wrong, your date needs to know what you want them to do: correct it, let it pass, or leave it to you. Schumacher suggests having an ally at the gathering who can correct misgendering or steer a conversation elsewhere, and a date who knows the plan can be that person.
• Agree a signal and an exit. The same article suggests a code word for when you need help or a break, a mental list of topics that are off limits, and a planned early departure. Settle who is driving before you arrive.

A partner can soften the questions at the table. Bringing someone mainly so that relatives stop asking puts them in a role they did not sign up for, so be honest with them about why you want them there.

If you are the one being brought

Ask what you are walking into. Which name does the family use? Is anyone there not out, and is there anything you should not mention? Three questions, asked a few days before, can save the whole evening. If you are both trans, you may each have a family to think about, and you can plan the season together rather than one visit at a time.

Winter dates that work

Cold weather changes the practical side of dating. Evenings come early, outdoor plans get cancelled, and the bar becomes the default simply because it is warm. A few adjustments help:

• Meet in daylight when you can. A weekend lunch or an afternoon walk gets you both home before dark and makes a first meeting feel smaller. The NHS advises people who struggle in winter to get as much natural daylight as they can, so a daytime date does two jobs.
• Pick somewhere warm, public and easy to leave: a gallery, a bookshop, a board game cafe, a covered market. First date ideas has plenty more, including what to skip the first time.
• Keep your own way home. A long journey in the dark is harder to cut short, so check the last train or bus before you go and do not rely on your date for a lift. Staying safe on a first date covers the rest.
• Count a video call as a date. Watching the same short film or cooking the same recipe on screen works when the weather, or the distance, says no.

Distance is the other winter problem. If few trans people live near you, snow and short days make every trip harder, and dating in a small town covers widening your radius and making the trips you do take count.

If you would rather not be cuffed

Staying single through winter is not a failure to take part in a season. The cold months can just as well go on friends, projects and rest, and a partner found in April is no worse than one found in October. If the season feels lonely, friendship is a real answer rather than a consolation prize, and how to make trans friends has ideas for where to start.

And if you do want to meet someone this winter, start where you do not have to explain yourself first. T4TSpace, a dating app by and for trans and non-binary people where every account is checked by a person, is one of those places.