Summer is not only the beginning of the nice weather and vacation season, it is also a time when the infamous “cuffing season” ends. Cuffing season is the phenomenon of relationships starting during the cooler fall months and surviving through the colder winter months, including holidays, but ending as the weather warms up and summer approaches. This season allows people the fun of a “cuddle buddy" during winter but the freedom of being single during the summer. It may sound like a silly trend or even just a funny hashtag on Instagram and Twitter that provide hilarious memes, but there is some truth to it. While several summer romances end at the end of summer or right before the start of the holiday season, to avoid gift giving and meeting the parents, several college and millennial relationships end in the summer as well. Thus, showing the cuffing season phenomena is actually becoming a thing. Why? What is it about the summer that scares partners into singleness again or is cuffing season only a symptom of a much bigger commit phobia of millennials?
Several college relationships end in the summer because students typically live in separate cities from their campus and significant other thus adding a strain on the relationship with the distance. However, is it the strain of the distance that cause the relationship to end or the want of freedom and not wanting to be tied down in the summer that causes the relationship to end as the summer is a short time and students will most likely be right back on campus together in the fall? Summer has always been a time of freedom and exploration ever since it was the time when school ended way back in elementary school and has persisted even in college as it provides a break from classes.
Is it possible that the belief that summer’s meaning of freedom, has translated from freedom from class to freedom from relationship? It appears so, as many relationships that go on a break during the summer somehow find each other again during the cooler months of “Netflix and Chill” after the beach and sundress excitement as died down. So if your significant other has called it quits during the past month, don’t worry; it may only be temporary until after Labor Day and the “Hey Stranger” cuffing season is upon us again.
