Cuffing Season
Happy cuffing season, folks. In Culture this week, we’re contemplating the season of relationships. Mark Rosenberg, PC ’20, offers a playlist to help you get in the mood, and Julia Hedges, SM ’20, makes a plea for cuffing — albeit cuffing in a slightly different form. You’ll also find a poem by Kellyn Kusyk, ’SM 20, on love and the seasons. And Amira Williams, PM ’20, and Meghana Mysore, DC ’20, reflect on solitude and friendship during this time.
A Playlist for Cuffing Season:
Let’s face it: Cuffing season isn’t the five months of cuddling by a fireplace wrapped in a leopard print Snuggie with a steaming mug of hot cocoa in your hands and an Al Green record playing softly in the background that it’s made out to be. Far from it. It’s an emotional roller coaster that will literally leave you out in the cold, stranded on the side of the road, icy slush seeping into your Blundstones if you’re unprepared. With that in mind, here’s a selection of tunes to warm your heart and soothe your soul through the inevitable ups and downs of these impending winter months.
November: I Really Like You — Carly Rae Jepsen
Late night, watching television, and you really really really really really really like the person next to you on the sofa? Come clean, get cuffed, and let the Rick and Morty roll.
December: Take Off Your Cool — Norah Jones, André 3000
Get warm, shed the veneer of insincerity that perpetually cloaks you, and settle down as the temperatures plummet.
January: Turnin’ Me Up — BJ the Chicago Kid
Now happily cuffed, turn up the heat and, even deep in the throes of winter, you’ll stay nice and toasty.
February: Love Like This — Natasha Bedingfield, Sean Kingston
As Valentine’s Day comes and goes, it hits you. You’ve never been cuffed like this before. Wrap your world around each other and hold on tight, because this is as good as it gets.
March: I Try — Macy Gray
Lo and behold, spring is here and cuffing season has come to an end. But the winter brought you something more powerful than you’d ever dreamed of. You try to hide it, but it’s clear: your world crumbles when they’re not here. Like no one else in your life, Macy gets it.
-Mark Rosenberg, PC ’20
“Thou shalt learn when to cuff em.”
-GQ magazine, the bible of fashion
To get straight to the point, the only relationship that matters this cuffing season is the one between your pants and your shoes. It’s not about obsessing over the ankle. It’s not about your little socks with little avocados on them. It’s about giving the world a peek at the best part of your jeans or khakis or leather joggers: the insides. It’s time to cuff.
There is nothing worse than pants bunched up at the ankle or tucked into boots. I shudder even imagining it. GQ says skip the socks, this style is for spring — I say, fuck that. Single roll, double roll, 1.5 inch roll, just do something that makes the tenuous sock region bearable to look at.
That’s right, as Patagonia vests and Carhartt beanies and infinity scarves are whipped out, remember that the only thing strangers will notice this autumn is the cuff of your pants. “Those are some marvelous cuffs,” everyone should say at your family Thanksgiving reunion as you steal the show. “I can’t look away,” your professor should say during your English seminar, eyes glued to the cuff of your jeans.
As a short gal who has read GQ magazine for as long as I can remember, I’ve cuffed everything: my jeans, my leggings, my socks down over my tights, the sleeves of my T-shirts and the hand holes of my sweaters. So obviously, I don’t know when to stop. But there is no stopping in cuffing, it’s as simple as that. For the sake of my fashionable eyeballs, cuffing is not optional.
-Julia Hedges, SM ’20
Cuffing Season: A poem
It’s a stereotype that two not-men
can fall in love really fast and move in together
before they’ve smelled each other’s dirty laundry
and breath in the morning and all that stuff.
People must think we’re really dumb.
But I knew I wasn’t dumb when I was falling in love
last winter in a dorm room with all your art on the walls,
especially not when I told you that after three weeks
and you were falling asleep and maybe a little annoyed at me
but you said it back, although really I heard you saying
“well, duh.”
I know I wasn’t dumb (even though I was falling behind in classes)
because if I was, I’d have been dumb to look up at the half moon
and think, “I bet the whole moon is still up there,
even though I can’t see all of it.”
And anyways I think some stereotypes are funny.
I like farming, which is pretty gay.
Sometimes I don’t know why I like it,
because I get bored easily and my back hurts
and in the end you have to rip plants up and kill them.
I didn’t go to Sunday school but last time I picked you a bouquet
I tried to turn every flower I killed into a prayer
and I thought it was odd how I was killing things for you
two weeks after your mom had died.
Wasn’t it just more death? But you didn’t see it that way.
You were chivalrous enough to notice the bouquet
which ended up being so small it fit into a slim-necked bottle.
There wasn’t a quick way to pick those flowers
because I kept seeing your face in them.
I’m sorry I only met your mom three times.
I’m sorry I’m hurting too.
I’m sorry I can’t scuffle-hoe your grief and plant new seeds.
I know you don’t need me to be sorry about those things.
Because even on the beach when we were also
in the company of your grief,
we saw the yellow moon
cut in half and rising over the Sound.
-Kellyn Kusyk, SM ’20
Cuffing season is upon us, and everyone is rushing to find that special someone they’ll cuddle up with when they don’t feel like making the trek to the regular basement frat parties. For most, cuffing season is about going from the talking stage to the dating stage and strengthening a bond that’s already there, but for people like me, cuffing season is about staying warm and finding solace in the friendships I have and will continue to form this semester.
As a first year, cuffing season is weird: we’ve just started school and are still fumbling to remember names and solidify newly formed friendships. While it is entirely possible for me to be in a relationship with someone at this point in my life (as some first years already are), I prefer to be completely autonomous right now. I can choose to stay in and sleep all night, go out with my friends, stay in with my friends, or cuddle with someone specifically to my liking. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. This cuffing season, I’m focusing on myself and making beneficial decisions for my own mental and physical health. People are so wrapped up in being in the company of others that they forget to find comfort in being alone. Especially in the first semester of college, it is easy to seek out the company of others because of the constant fear of missing out. And with this comes a continuous desire for your company to be wanted by someone else. Instead of always forcing myself to go out or stay in with a large group, I’d like to be more selfish, dedicate time and attention to myself, and rediscover the comfort of being alone.
-Amira Williams, PM ’21
All of my suitemates except for me are seriously cuffed. Not lightly cuffed but seriously, lastingly cuffed. It really highlights how incredibly un-cuffed I am, and sometimes it’s kind of depressing. Now that daylight savings has ended and it’s dark at 4 p.m., all I want most nights is to experience the sweet cuffed life and cuddle with someone while watching an episode of The Office or Parks and Recreation. But instead, alone in my dorm room, I chuckle loudly to myself as I watch these shows, and it’s lights out at 8 p.m. (Not really. I wouldn’t have such prominent bags under my eyes if this were true.)
But really, I’m painting too pessimistic of a picture here. So much of cuffing, like the probability that we will actually get up to eat breakfast before class, depends on timing. And so we obsess over time, and think of when exactly we will find our special person. So often, when I see my suitemates in their relationships, I feel hopelessly alone and doomed to a life of chuckling sadly in my dorm room, and I wonder when, if ever, I will find someone. This, however, is untrue because as cliche as it sounds, being alone is different from being lonely. I am not lonely. I have genuine, beautiful friends who fill my life with laughter and conversation and weirdness, and I am incomparably lucky for this. Even when I sit alone in my dorm room or see my suitemates and classmates with their significant others, I’m not lonely. One day, the timing will be right for me, too, but I just can’t obsess over it. As Michael Bublé wisely said in his (in my opinion) mediocre song, I just haven’t met you yet.
-Meghana Mysore, DC ’20 (YH Staff)
