No idea why this picture was in Bwog archives but here we are, a pair of handcuffs, symbolizing cuffing season

It’s cuffing season, and we’re back with our annoying tabloid-esque love-and-relationships articles. Here are the stages of getting cuffed in this city, a land barren of love, at this university full of emotionally unavailable sad people. 

1. You arrive at Columbia, not yet having broken up with your high school sweetheart who is going to college in California. You shared an emotional and tearful farewell, where you promised to text each other every second of every waking moment, that you will see each other every possible break or long weekend, and that you will get married as soon as you both graduate.
2. Some drunken nights later, these New Yorkers are looking real attractive.
3. You go to some EC/frat parties and may or may not make out with someone and not tell your boo, depending on how (im)moral you are.
4. But you receive news that your sweetheart cheated on you, so you kiss that ass adieu and start singling and mingling.
5. Singling and mingling is….fun. Very fun. And goddamn, there are so many attractive people in this city.
6. You become the anti-commitment archetype. You take pride in being the “emotionally unavailable” douche who doesn’t look back after a hookup, and you brag about ghosting people. You don’t text back. Or text first. And hey, live your best life! Don’t be an asshole, but you do you!
7. Your friends who used to go on hoescapades with you start getting cuffed. You grow bitter and defiant. Relationship labels are a social construct! Sexual liberation is a necessary part of spiritual liberation! You are a free soul who won’t let the archaic conventions of typical relationships tie you down!
8. Eventually, you may get too busy to hunt out a new hookup (or multiple) every weekend. You stop going to those hot, sweaty parties. Who has the energy to walk all the way to EC, anyway? You’re too tired to meet new people. Tinder sucks. Bumble has a BUSINESS feature now, what the fuck? It disillusions you and you delete both apps.
9. Cuffing season rolls around. (Note: the time span between steps 6 and 8 may be anywhere from a few weeks to a few years, so a few cuffing seasons may have rolled around already. But another one comes, inevitably.) You meet someone (at 1020, a party, Tinder, a class, whatever) and hook up with them not once, not twice, not even three times, but more than that. All your friends are shocked. You are shocked, too.
10. Congrats, you are cuffed! Everyone has different definitions of “being cuffed.” You might define “being cuffed” as hooking up more than twice, being exclusive, actually being in a serious relationship, or whatever else. It doesn’t matter what the objective definition of “being cuffed” is, as long as you’re cuffed according to your own standards.
11. Then you’ll probably graduate from college, move across the country, break up, and repeat this cycle. I’m not sure how that works because I haven’t gotten there yet, but if any alums want to weigh in on this, please do!

Happy cuffing season!

Handcuffs via Bwog Archives