It descends upon us every October like a sexy fog

October 15, 2016 5:25 AM

It runs (in the northern hemisphere) from November to March, though culturally it kicks off when Starbucks change their menu to pumpkin spice; people who would rather be single or promiscuous start looking for someone to attach themselves to for the cold winter months. How to handle ‘Cuffing Season’
posted by acb (74 comments total)

I vaguely remember mention of this ritual in the antarctic memoir "Big Dead Place" as winter set in at McMurdo. Everyone, married or single back in the world, would pair off for the season. There were more men than women so the advice was 'go ugly, early'.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:36 AM on October 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

I first saw this story and thought it's a Clickhole parody of the millennial-thinkpiece genre, right?
posted by acb at 5:40 AM on October 15, 2016 [16 favorites]

I believe this is what the mad genius Edith Zimmerman termed, A Winter Boyfriend. My winter boyfriend is three and a half feet tall, subsists solely on sweet potato milkshakes, and sleeps in a pile of scarves he's made into a nest in at the foot of my bed.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 5:57 AM on October 15, 2016 [25 favorites]

for some reason the word "cuffing" just feels really gross to me, and I can't put my finger on why
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:19 AM on October 15, 2016 [35 favorites]

I'm glad I read this because I was thinking that maybe after years of not seeing people I might be ready for dating or hooking up but no people are terrible and revolting and I want nothing to do with them thanks for reminding me.
posted by idiopath at 6:24 AM on October 15, 2016 [43 favorites]

So then, this is my generation's "Kids these days..."

*Sigh*
posted by humboldt32 at 6:31 AM on October 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that happens when being in a Long-Term Monogamous Relationship (with a view to home ownership and children) is no longer a prerequisite for Adulting correctly.
posted by acb at 6:37 AM on October 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

for some reason the word "cuffing" just feels really gross to me, and I can't put my finger on why

It reminds me of that gross expression for a spouse, "ball and chain."
posted by Dip Flash at 6:41 AM on October 15, 2016 [14 favorites]

I must be old or something.
posted by Artw at 6:53 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

Having said that, VICE do sometimes do good journalism. (Mind you, so does the Wall Street Journal, though everyone I know who mentions that cautions with “don't read the editorials”.)
posted by acb at 6:53 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can people not just buy a radiator I don't understand
posted by eykal at 7:01 AM on October 15, 2016 [18 favorites]

Mod note: McInnes derail deleted. Since he hasn't been associated with Vice for nearly 10 years, probably better just to discuss what folks think about the article more specifically.
posted by taz (staff) at 7:07 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that happens when being in a Long-Term Monogamous Relationship (with a view to home ownership and children) is no longer a prerequisite for Adulting correctly.

Strongly agreed.

I think the very idiom "adulting" is one sign among others that few people take adulthood seriously any more. For nearly any signifier that has supposedly indicated adulthood, you'll find that it's been reduced in value, made optional, or rejected outright in recent cultural history. Everyone dresses like a child, and the clothing that used to indicate adulthood are mostly reserved for niche career paths. Everyone consumes media designed for children. Most music has turned into children's music in terms of structure and complexity. The conventions of narrative structure in successful movies and books aim for something an 8 year old can readily comprehend. I am not hung up on being an adult by the old standards, and I'm fine with the changes, but it's a major cultural shift.
posted by idiopath at 7:08 AM on October 15, 2016 [61 favorites]

MeFi's Own cstross on adulting and imposter syndrome
posted by acb at 7:13 AM on October 15, 2016 [13 favorites]

How far is the distance between Adult and Adultery?
posted by Postroad at 7:14 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

acb: I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that happens when being in a Long-Term Monogamous Relationship (with a view to home ownership and children) is no longer a prerequisite for Adulting correctly.

I think this is the sort of thing that happens when larger-scale economic and cultural changes excludes an entire generation from being able to Adult correctly (in the "being able to ever afford home ownership and children" sense), except for the wealth-owning minority.
posted by cstross at 7:18 AM on October 15, 2016 [82 favorites]

Though isn't it like renting property? Some people do so because they can't afford to do otherwise, whereas others do so because they prefer the freedom and/or are averse to long-term commitment. The salient question is how much of a penalty is there for “opting out” of adulting; is it like Germany, where everybody rents and tenants have rights, or like the Anglocapitalist world, where the laws of beggars-can't-be-choosers and moral-hazard mean that tenants are fair prey?

In relationships, the analogue would be: will society punish those who don't pair up for life (or at least a sequence of multi-year relationships, involving shared property ownership and/or children)?
If there are people who, all other things being equal, don't like the idea of forming the nucleus of a nuclear family, the fact that economic circumstances prevent them and many others from doing so probably spares them from social punishment and ostracism, and as they pay 70% of their income to some grasping, empire-building slumlord, they can console themselves with that idea of freedom.
posted by acb at 7:36 AM on October 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ah...hostage-taking season...the most wonderful time of the year!

(for those of you who seem to be confused, yes, this article is comedy/parody. But...we've all been there one winter or another, so who want's me to send them a very inappropriate selfie? You can tell I am very sweet, tho, because I am smiling in the picture...I mean, it's kind of hard to tell because my head is upside-down...)
posted by sexyrobot at 7:43 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you sing 'Winter Fuck," to the tune of the Misfits' "Angel Fuck" it's kinda catchy.
posted by jonmc at 7:43 AM on October 15, 2016

wait just a doggone second

*squints old, long-married eyes* are "cuffing season" and "decorative gourd season" the same thing
posted by barchan at 7:52 AM on October 15, 2016 [27 favorites]

Every time I read one of these articles about millennial hook ups, I get depressed thinking about what it would be like being a sensitive vulnerable honest young adult with a normal healthy libido who was genuinely interested in becoming intimate with a partner. I mean, does this still exist with all your Tinders and Grinders and Cuffing? I mean the message, even more than when I was growing up (which even then was *way* too focused on superficial shit and fucking) seems to be "how to get your needs met when you have the hassle of another person's feelings and unpredictable behavior potentially standing in the way." Am I ok with my kids developing healthy emotional maturity in this environment? Because I have no frame of reference to guide them.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:54 AM on October 15, 2016 [25 favorites]

The kids are all right.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:58 AM on October 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

It's the think piece writers you need to worry about.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:58 AM on October 15, 2016 [33 favorites]

Couples do have a tendency to start looking extra adorable and enviable this time of year (as well as in early spring). It is a perennial temptation and returns no matter how far back I try to prune it.

Generally though I identify most strongly with, "Do you know how much shit you can get done when you're not having sex and navigating someone else's ego?" Especially the latter, which extends to semi-platonic relations and crushes. I've thought back carefully, many times, and except for rare instances when they were being especially nice, I can't remember life events or just stretches of everyday living that were made at all better on the balance by the presence of whomever I was dating at the time. Usually they were made worse or more difficult or tiresome because of having to accommodate our at least tolerate moods and impatience and unwillingness to suck it up and make the best of anything that didn't meet their standard of perfection. Including me. I have yet to encounter anything (that I couldn't get or achieve on my own) that makes that seem like a good bargain.

Barchan, yes: we signify our availability for making hasty romantic pairings by the purchase and display of decorative gourds, whether in their small ornamental form, their scent, or their ingested natural and synthetic flavors. Ancient lore rumors them to be an aphrodisiac, and the shapes are a totemic symboling of fecundity, besides looking really cute in a centerpiece.
posted by notquitemaryann at 8:03 AM on October 15, 2016 [15 favorites]

But they didn't interview Mr. Autumn Man.
posted by adamg at 8:12 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am 28, and I thought this was hilarious. I don't have much, but you can trust my sense of humor, non-Millenial folks.
posted by book 'em dano at 8:19 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I get depressed thinking about what it would be like being a sensitive vulnerable honest young adult with a normal healthy libido who was genuinely interested in becoming intimate with a partner.

I am constantly terrified of this with my daughter, who wants to eventually be married and have a family, but has been telling me for a year or two that the boys aren't being very /nice/ to the girls they date and when does it start happening?
posted by corb at 8:27 AM on October 15, 2016 [16 favorites]

While doing the weekly shopping earlier today my SO declared that with the nights drawing in and the trees turning to gold we are now at the start of crumpet season. This is a very, very different thing than is talked about in this article.
posted by biffa at 8:35 AM on October 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

for some reason the word "cuffing" just feels really gross to me, and I can't put my finger on why

No shit.

It descends upon us every October like a sexy fog

Is that so? All that descends upon me every October here in the hot desert Southwest is an unrelenting desire to turn off my goddamn airconditioning and wear some normal clothes for a change.
posted by strelitzia at 8:45 AM on October 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

I cannot favorite cstross's point about who is allowed to be an adult enough times. I've been thinking about how my generation (gen-x-cusp-millennial, I think of us as Cuspies) has been infantilized for some time.

And I think cuffing sounds either like boxing someone's ears or some kinky thing you do with foreskin, and the combination does not sound nice
posted by gusandrews at 8:52 AM on October 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

and then you turn forty and it's last chance to find someone to go with you into that good night... the long winter.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:01 AM on October 15, 2016 [8 favorites]

I mean, does this still exist with all your Tinders and Grinders and Cuffing?

Um yes? I know people who have gotten into long term Serious Relationships because of Tinder. I also know of plenty of folks who were sleeping together casually by other means and only started seriously dating afterwards. If anything it seems pretty positive for the health of the average long term relationship that people tend to ferret out sexual compatibility sooner.
posted by Gymnopedist at 9:05 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

TBH from what I can tell everyone has their heads screwed on a lot better, has better expectations and a bunch of additional tools so I suspect things are actually better than when I was young and single?
posted by Artw at 9:07 AM on October 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

Yeah people like me have always been lonely and miserable, but today's dating world is much better than anything from the past.
posted by idiopath at 9:18 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Anecdata, here: I am over 50 and have been with my wife for pushing 24 years now. No Tindr or Grindr or internet dating sites or Pornhub and internet porn sites existed back when we hooked up.

Nevertheless, aside from a single introduction by a friend in a pub, we did almost all our getting to know each other prior to actually hooking up via email (which was all we had back then because the web barely existed in those days.)

With 20/20 hindsight we should have started up our very own dating website in 1996: it's not like we didn't have a real big clue (which we pointedly failed to notice).

Anyway, this new-fangled trend to mis-use Serious Communications Channels to allow Young People to Behave Disgracefully (harrumph!) isn't new or original to the millennials. Hell, it was happening in the 1870s between telegraph operators! The only new angles to it are (a) its diffusion out into the broader culture, and (b) the way it has led to a generation who are hopefully, in the aggregate, a little less isolated and ignorant and fucked-up than their predecessors.
posted by cstross at 9:29 AM on October 15, 2016 [11 favorites]

Isn't the home-ownership, nuclear-family view of adulthood a relatively recent and North America centric one? Home-ownership was possible because land and construction in the US and Canada were cheap and wages were high; nuclear families were well adapted to single-salary households with detached homes and cars.

But these things weren't really possible in the early 20th century for most people. Cars were still very expensive so you needed to live somewhere you could access your job on foot or by public transit. A lot of the time older people lived with relatives.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:37 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think the problem is being misunderstood. It's not "youngsters acting up and their technology!" It's more like the idea that dating websites, with their plethora of options, are causing people to consider things that were once charming foibles as deal breakers - that the variety of choices and lack of consequences for toying with them makes people less considerate of individuals, or willing to stick it out long enough for more serious feelings to develop.

I have a few friends that are single. Fifteen years ago, I would have set them up on blind dates with other humans. These dates might have failed, but in the failures they would have gained valuable experience.

Now, I said "I'll set you up with a dating profile", and the specificity emerged. Must be between these and these physical characteristics, these and these ages, must have this specific approach to children, these specific politics, this specific range of wealth, this height, this level of education, etc.

And because they're sorting out for the things they think they want, they don't get to discover there are loads of charming people they could quite easily fall in love with who are different than they expected. And so they are still single, and not happier, but miserable about it.
posted by corb at 9:39 AM on October 15, 2016 [24 favorites]

This article is terrible (also, "cuffing?" Sounds like some kind of kinky shit), but also, I actually think it's great to be single during the holidays. It's at least one less present you have to get, and you don't have to fight over whose relatives to spend the holiday with. The one long-term boyfriend I ever had during holiday seasons was very insistent that we spend the holidays together, but between me having a dying father (which meant no way in hell was I ever spending time with someone else's relatives, especially if they didn't really do anything at all for Christmas) and us going to the house of relatives who didn't even want ME there, much less a boyfriend of mine, and they would not have been polite to him even if he'd been invited... He didn't comprehend "not being invited or wanted" or "they won't be nice to you" worth a damn, and while I won the argument of us spending it apart, the fighting about this for MONTHS just sucked.

"I am constantly terrified of this with my daughter, who wants to eventually be married and have a family, but has been telling me for a year or two that the boys aren't being very /nice/ to the girls they date and when does it start happening?"

Uh...some women are in their fifties and still waiting for this to happen.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:48 AM on October 15, 2016 [11 favorites]

I'm a gen-xer and this has been happening for a while- at least as long as I have been dating. Some years are "make some sh$$ happen" and some years are- awwww, you keep my feet warm. It's nbd as far as I can see.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 9:53 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

This article simultaneously amused me and reminded me how happy I am to be married.

I also wonder what ages/locations really experience this kind of culture. I'm 31, so at the upper end of "Millenial" depending on definition; live in Santa Fe, NM, USA, and most of our friends are in the 25-35 age range, in a variety of life situations. As far as I can tell, everyone we know around here is looking for stable relationships regardless of the time of year...

(It is, of course, entirely possible that my experience is the unusual one, rather than the article's.)
posted by fencerjimmy at 10:08 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

i thought this was about cruffins
posted by poffin boffin at 10:09 AM on October 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

for some reason the word "cuffing" just feels really gross to me, and I can't put my finger on why

Alas! The reason for my concurrage.....

The hot desert Southwest definition of "cuffing" involves the unsexy, never romantic, chilly Joe Arpaio.

So around these parts, we run, bike, fly, tunnel underground, and/or employ whatever means necessary to avoid any semblance of "cuffing", lest we end up in a fate worse than death. Tent City.

[Disclaimer: strelitzia and posse are responsible for the content of this message]
posted by strelitzia at 10:17 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

I remember hearing about something similar decades ago. I can't recall what it was being called; bedwarmer or winter mate or something like that. But I'm pretty sure this is a human thing, not a "kids these days" thing.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:22 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Huh. When I was young and single I didn't care what damn season it was.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:23 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

While the framing is both twee and icky, this is totally a real thing. Last Monday night, my tiny little bar saw 6 identifiable first dates. That's waaay above normal, and coincides with the return of colder weather. Also, multiple couples in their 30s and 40s.
posted by cult_url_bias at 10:56 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that happens when being in a Long-Term Monogamous Relationship (with a view to home ownership and children) is no longer a prerequisite for Adulting correctly.

This is something that happens when you need a warm body to take home for Thanksgiving and to the office Christmas Party and to kiss on New Years. Skipping the holidays isn't sad if you're in the Bahamas with a lover but it is sad if you're in the Bahamas alone. Then you can realize it's moving too fast around Valentines and break up with them and have a few months before you need someone for summer wedding season.

These people are just smart and planning early.
posted by fshgrl at 11:08 AM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that happens when being in a Long-Term Monogamous Relationship (with a view to home ownership and children) is no longer a prerequisite for Adulting correctly.

As a female person who dates, I see the surge in unsolicited messages from men anytime the weather changes or major holidays approach. By far the biggest of these is the weather getting colder.

And to be clear, it's an increase in 'hey what's up' and 'I read your profile. We have a lot in common, let's grab a beer' rather than thoughtful messages. I don't drink beer, but I do openly identify on Okcupid and other dating forums as not being monogamous. I already have warm cozy people to have fun sex times with this winter. I'm clear and repetitive in my profile about looking for a primary partner. But this thing that I now have a name for? I still see it playing out in my life.
posted by bilabial at 11:33 AM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I remember hearing about something similar decades ago. I can't recall what it was being called; bedwarmer or winter mate or something like that. But I'm pretty sure this is a human thing, not a "kids these days" thing.

Every time the subject of the number of October birthdays in our family comes up (there are a bunch), my dad gets this gleam in his eye and rolls out the same line.

Someone else: "Oh hey - there are lots of birthdays in October in your family!"

Dad: "Heh heh..."

Me: "No dad. Stop dad. Not again. NO."

Dad: "Heh heh heh. It gets pretty cold in February, eh?"

Me: "Ew stop."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:46 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

But I'm pretty sure this is a human thing, not a "kids these days" thing.

What I meant was giving it a vomit inducing, infantilizing name.
posted by humboldt32 at 11:52 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, well, yeah, that seemed a bit gratuitous (or just the wrong side of "silly" for my own sense of humor).
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:57 AM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

1st RULE: You do not talk about CUFFING.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about CUFFING.

3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the cuffing is over.

4th RULE: Only two people to a cuff.

5th RULE: One cuff at a time.

6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.

7th RULE: Fisticuffs will go on as long as they have to.

8th RULE: If this is your first autumn at CUFFING CLUB, you HAVE to get cuffed.
posted by idiopath at 11:58 AM on October 15, 2016 [13 favorites]

CUFFING CLUB eh? Sounds hot.
posted by some loser at 12:08 PM on October 15, 2016

Every time I read one of these articles about millennial hook ups, I get depressed thinking about what it would be like being a sensitive vulnerable honest young adult with a normal healthy libido who was genuinely interested in becoming intimate with a partner.

Every time you read one of these articles you should also be considering the possibility that they are 75-80% horse manure. It's not like there's ever been a very high bar for accuracy and comprehensiveness in lifestyle articles, but now that the Internet is like 60% lifestyle articles, it's gotten pretty bad.
posted by praemunire at 12:34 PM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

... these articles ... are 75-80% horse manure. ... the Internet is like 60% lifestyle articles

So...does that mean that only 75-80% of 60% of the Internet is horse manure, thereby reducing the total Internet Manure Quotient; or are the 60% and 75-80% figures additive rather than subtractive?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:48 PM on October 15, 2016

Everyone knows that if they were additive, they would be referred to as percentage points.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:52 PM on October 15, 2016

Whether the hair on my head has shrunk by 80% or 80 "percentage points", my head's still just as bald.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:06 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every time I read one of these articles about millennial hook ups

Oh you innocent soul! Who said it only applies to millennials?
posted by bitteschoen at 1:10 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Cuffing" is just "Fucking" spelled sideways.
posted by briank at 1:47 PM on October 15, 2016 [16 favorites]

I like to think of this as the beginning of the 9 month long season in Seattle where people use umbrellas to poke other people in the face. Because for some weird reason umbrella users need to have them lowered to below eye level so they can't see and and are oddly drawn to walk under awnings where people without umbrellas are trying to walk.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:13 PM on October 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

So...does that mean that only 75-80% of 60% of the Internet is horse manure

I sure didn't say that only lifestyle articles are horse manure!
posted by praemunire at 3:15 PM on October 15, 2016

I was reminded of the "finger cuffs" nickname for Alyssa in Chasing Amy, given after she had a mmf 3way.
posted by brujita at 3:24 PM on October 15, 2016

I can't scoff at that article because I recently re-established contact with my ex after more than a decade of radio silence, and even though I was still very, very aware of All The Reasons Not To Even Think About It, I still felt the pull. (Her ordering a PSL may have had something to do with it.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:24 PM on October 15, 2016

It reminds me of that gross expression for a spouse, "ball and chain."

Must be deliberate, since it's a less-extreme way of "tying you down" to one person, right? Keeping you inside, together, etc.
posted by rokusan at 4:43 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every time I read one of these articles, I think to myself, "Wait, is it that I am after all asexual? This does not sound remotely like how I have ever approached any kind of romantic or sexual relationship," and then I remember that I'm attracted to people so probably not asexual after all.
posted by Frowner at 5:23 PM on October 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

Every time I read one of these articles, I think to myself, "Wait, is it that I am after all asexual? This does not sound remotely like how I have ever approached any kind of romantic or sexual relationship," and then I remember that I'm attracted to people so probably not asexual after all.

I have been considering the asexual standard of "cake > sex" at length lately. I do not really feel asexual as such, though I don't come into limerence easily. Also I don't really like cake very much so the analogy falls down slightly.
But I have thought that if I don't, on balance, enjoy a relationship day-to-day as much as a very good sandwich, then my time could be spent better preparing the ingredients for that sandwich.
Articles like this are yet to pass my sandwich test.
posted by solarion at 6:11 PM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I was reminded of the "finger cuffs" nickname for Alyssa in Chasing Amy, given after she had a mmf 3way.

Less exciting. More domestic.
posted by rokusan at 6:53 PM on October 15, 2016

Let me tell you all about the magic that is Winter Break.

My fiancée, quite reasonably, only likes to have sex when she is well-rested and not drowning in stress. Since she's a teacher, this essentially means that she's only in the mood during vacation periods.

I, on the other hand, have a body that radiates heat in quantities that regularly interfere with local weather readings. I am a furnace, and I also hate being warm. I have no interest in sex pretty much any time that the temperature goes above 70F.

So for all intents and purposes, the only time that we're both feeling it is Winter Break.

Get hype!
posted by Parasite Unseen at 7:11 PM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

Must be deliberate, since it's a less-extreme way of "tying you down" to one person, right? Keeping you inside, together, etc.

The first time I saw the term "cuffing" might have been on MetaFilter, and was from an article in a college newspaper. It feels like a phrase used at some colleges that maybe is getting a bit of traction in some articles, but isn't really a term that I expect to see in wide usage. Most people, of whatever generation, don't actually think of or describe pairing up using handcuff metaphors.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:30 PM on October 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I mean the message, even more than when I was growing up (which even then was *way* too focused on superficial shit and fucking) seems to be "how to get your needs met when you have the hassle of another person's feelings and unpredictable behavior potentially standing in the way."

I'm 26 y/o, and I share this concern. While I'm all for the casting off of traditional expectations about adulthood and partnership that make people feel stifled and stuck, I'm not so convinced that current dating practices always promote the freedom of both parties. And I, for one, don't particularly want to live in a world where emotional accountability or interpersonal bravery have been deemed passé.

I think the current culture of casual sex (that the Internet did not create, but certainly expanded upon) undermines much more frequently than it empowers both men and women. Everyone feels an overwhelming pressure to be exceedingly non-committal and glib about sex and dating. This essentially renders taboo any attempt to establish the boundaries and expectations of each person—such discussions are treated as being way too casual for the context of casual hooking up (even weeks or months into an arrangement). I find this trend really disturbing, and I think it's fairly obvious that women tend to suffer more here. Power dynamics don't cease to exist in a free-for-all.

The freedom to date and have sex by our own rules is really only a free-for-all if BOTH PARTIES feel safe and encouraged to express what they want and need. Any arrangement, no matter how brief or casual, needs to be predicated on mutual respect. Otherwise, it's just as oppressive as the next thing.
posted by materialgirl at 10:33 PM on October 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think I may have been starting to feel the PSL-tinged call of this "cuffing", but I put flannel sheets on my bed last night instead, so now I'm good. Cheers, y'all.
posted by maryr at 9:21 AM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

You know, my relationship with my husband began in November, with what I guess you could euphemistically call a "first date" in which the destination of the date was "my apartment," during a period of my life when I had many, MANY of these first-and-only "dates." The next morning I realized I had a tingle of affection for him, and we continued seeing one another and, yes, getting to know one another over email. Why email? Because this was in 1995.

I realize the article is satire, but the behavior it's satirizing is in no way new.
posted by KathrynT at 11:07 AM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

And to be clear, it's an increase in 'hey what's up' and 'I read your profile. We have a lot in common, let's grab a beer' rather than thoughtful messages. I don't drink beer, but I do openly identify on Okcupid and other dating forums as not being monogamous. I already have warm cozy people to have fun sex times with this winter. I'm clear and repetitive in my profile about looking for a primary partner. But this thing that I now have a name for? I still see it playing out in my life.

So from the other side, I can see the incentives playing out for short, less thoughtful messages. If my experience is any indication, the path for a typical guy on a dating site/app (even assuming looking for a relationship) might be something like this:

* Awesome! I'm on a dating site! There's a whole world of women here definitely looking for contact and new relationships, and some of them are very interesting and appealing. I'll find a handful that I'm most interested in and think there could be serious potential with, and I'll write them carefully composed substantial but funny and slightly soulful notes of appropriately intermediate length for an introduction.
* Huh. I just put 5 hours into 10 messages sent and 1 response? Well, I guess it's just a fact that most people aren't going to be interested. Maybe I need to change my profile pic and work harder at those messages. I'll ask some friends what I could be doing differently.
* Hmmm. 20 messages sent and 2 responses that have resulted in stalled conversations. Gotta work on a better profile pic. Maybe I need to work out more? Trying to incorporate that advice, but female friends say of course it'll work eventually and it only has to work once.
* Well, 50 messages, and a handful of responses that have led to one date. It's sure been a lot of time put into all that messaging. Some friends are saying short funny messages that reference at least one thing from profiles are the way to go, that way you can cover more ground, and let your profile be the introduction.
* I'm not even sure some women have read their own profile since they wrote it. Maybe this is just a numbers game and a matter of luck? If so, makes the most sense to just use a lot of short messages to perk up the attention of the apparent decided minority that's likely to be interested...

And then the population splits along the lines of men who are willing to keep doing that over and over regardless of response, and men who think "Should I get a dog? And I probably shouldn't be neglecting my hobbies so much for this. Wonder what's on Netflix?"
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:47 AM on October 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

My experience as a 26 year old (living in London in the UK) has been that the majority of my friends and acquaintances are interested in / have a long term relationship. Looking through my facebook friends list I would say that less than 25% of the people in the top 50 (I have no idea how Facebook sorts them...) are not in a committed, long term relationship. I definitely know a few people who are constantly "seeing" different people in a non-committal way, but they are by far the minority. I think most of the people not in a relationship right now would jump at the opportunity if it presented itself. I would imagine there's a lot of socio-economic effects at play, so I'm not going to pretend that its a particularly representative sample from the whole population. I'd be surprised if human nature has fundamentally changed in a generation though - at least in my experience most people want to be in a committed relationship.

I also wouldn't say that the people I know my age don't want the traditional concepts of marrying or owning a house. The big difference between my generation and my parent's generation is the difference in affordability of that dream. House prices round here have been rising, year on year, by more than many of my friends make in a whole year. Its no wonder that owning a house seems unattainable enough to give up on.
posted by leo_r at 1:21 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought this was going to be those festive paper-sleeves restaurants put on cups this time of year



I haven't been laid in a long time
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:20 AM on October 17, 2016 [3 favorites]