So you didn’t manage to find someone to smooch on New Year’s Eve.
That’s okay. You don’t need a romantic relationship to feel content, right? It’s just that all those coupley photos on the ‘Gram of loved up people ice-skating and drinking hot chocolate have left you feeling a bit, well, desperately alone.
We’ve made it through cuffing season (that’s the lovely period of winter when everyone wants to couple up so they’re not alone over Christmas), but the mad dash to rub our genitals against another person’s isn’t over yet.
It’s clearing season.
Coined by Emma Garland and Hannah Ewens over at Vice, clearing season is essentially a second stage cuffing season, when you become so aware of the depths of your own loneliness that you are filled with a new need to have someone to give you some form of human contact.
It’s cold. We’re sad. The joy of Christmas has passed.
No longer do we dream of snuggled up nights with someone we love. In clearing season, we’ll take anyone just to make us feel like we’re not entirely repulsive beings.
This can lead to some very poor romantic decisions.
The good matches have either been cuffed or are whole enough to ignore the violent screaming of their body for another’s warmth. You’re left to choose from people who you don’t have any real passion for, but, well, they’ll do.
You’re a dry, flaky, dampened version of yourself so you don’t have any of the thrill of romantic frisson or heady drunken nights of passionate sex. Instead you just want someone to be there, to eat baked potatoes with and watch Black Mirror.
This isn’t about fun or lust or love. It’s about the sad desperation that comes with confronting your loneliness.
As Emma and Hannah put it, ‘January is a dark month’.
Rather than finding someone new, it’s predicted that you’ll go for a previous hookup, someone you’ve been flirting with for ages, or an ex. Who can be bothered to go out on the pull?
It’ll all fall apart either by Valentine’s Day, when you realise that you don’t even really like this person, you just needed to remember what human touch feels like, or when spring arrives, and with it, your friskiness.
Our advice? As long as it’s clear that both of you are entirely aware that your relationship is built only on despair, go forth into clearing season and do it as described.
If you’re feeling more attached, though, and don’t want a ‘relationship’ that goes kaput once the weather warms up, be on the lookout for signs that you’re simply a choice made in the mentality of clearing season.
More: Sex
If they’ve made little to no effort until now, that’s a warning sign. If they don’t actually seem that excited to spend time with you, that’s another.
Stay cautious, single people. Question your motivations, and whether you really find that one guy that sometimes sits opposite you at work attractive. Question everything.
Get through this and emerge from the other side of clearing season ready to either be happily single or pursue a relationship you’re actually keen on.
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