Women have had enough of the cuff

By Susan Riley, Head of Think Stylist

Lodged somewhere between the spiced chai lattes and festive light switch-on, this time of year is known in the relationship realm as cuffing season. This is a period of time described in a 2021 Stylist article as “usually beginning between September and October and lasting until just after Valentine’s Day… where single people begin looking for short-term partnerships to pass the colder months of the year.”

Note the date of that Stylist article and let me corroborate further that the notion of cuffing season is so outdated, I can’t even deal.

So why does this annual pushing of the cosy coupledom narrative remain? For one, it creates great social debate, be that dating app stats telling us singles feel more pressure to settle or scientific theories on why dating and mating are notoriously seasonal. For another, it plays neatly into the romance-laden entertainment schedule we’re seasonally served up. Please take note of Stylist’s excellent autumn curation of spark-flying dramas or simply switch on Netflix and be like a Christmas romance pig in sh** under a blanket.

I’m particularly here for the latter – I love a festive rom-com. There’s a reason why The Holiday, all snowy and sparkly and log-fire laden, has become a modern-day cult classic. But let’s not confuse appreciation with aspiration. Life isn’t a rom-com and women don’t always want to be what they can see.

Erosion of the single stigma

The central principle of cuffing season is that singles feel an even more heightened pressure to couple up and therefore limit their true selves in the process because they partner-pick in a rush. And yet this is an assumption that just doesn’t ring true for 2025.

Two years ago, Think Stylist published a study entitled ‘Women at 30’, designed to get under the skin of UK 30-somethings and identify emerging trends among younger Millennials and older Gen Z. A dominant theme to emerge (along with 8 others) was ‘Bye Bye Bridget Jones’ – the name I gave the accelerated erosion of ‘single woman stigma’ alongside everything ice cream tub-yielding, hairbrush-holding Bridget represented.

Outside of marriage, we found that 38% of women were in a relationship versus 46% a decade ago, and that only 21% felt compelled to be in a relationship at all. These figures were cemented by those from the Office for National Statistics that reported the number of women aged 30-44 not in a couple or having never married increased by almost 15% between 2002 and 2020.

Far more crucial than the figures though are the feelings around this topic. Writer Chante Joseph has now clocked up 5.9 million views of the TikTok explainer of her ‘Are Boyfriends Embarrassing?’ article she penned for Vogue six weeks ago – a critical think-piece about how women are increasingly starting to view heterosexual relationships.

Joseph spoke to scores of heterosexual women about their relationship status and found a generation reluctant to appear boyfriend-obsessed. Their reasons were varied and personal, from not wanting to jinx a union or boast about finding love in a poor dating landscape, to a fear that they became beiger and more watered-down online when coupled up. But the underlying implication was the same: that being someone’s ‘girlfriend’ in 2025 can threaten to dim a woman’s flame.

“Never ever have I resonated more with an article in my life,” Stylist Thinkfluencer Sophia, told us (she’s mid-30s and recently divorced). “People at my spa were discussing it, my eyelash lady was discussing it… and the consensus was we all do think it’s a humiliation ritual these days to be associated with a man!

“There has been some misinterpretation of the article in that [it’s] somehow shaming other women that are in relationships with men, but that’s not the case. If women are happy in relationships with men, more power to them – it is just that the overwhelmingly universal experience of many women right now (and perhaps I would argue throughout history) is that having a male partner simply decreases your life quality.”

“For too long single women have been seen as desperate or ‘poor them’, whereas it's not like that any more. I don't identify as that. I don't see other single women like that. Now it’s like, ‘Oh wow, good for her. Go girl. It’s empowering.”

Sophia’s take on singledom – that it’s growing in desirability and status – accurately reflects what’s going on out there in that modern women, more highly educated and financially independent than ever before, are becoming happier than ever to simply fall in love with themselves. And as this cohort invests more time and money into self-care and self-growth, the ‘settler’ single that cuffing season portrays is becoming harder to recognise. The pressure women feel isn’t to be ‘cuffed’, it’s to thrive in their own right.

And so brands need to ensure they’re reframing the narrative when speaking to women around this season. Yes, there’s a desire for cosy but that need not take the form of a couple. This period is increasingly about solo empowerment, about treating ourselves (half of women will treat themselves to gifts and experiences they value this December) and prioritising friendship-first festivities, plans and reunions. About writing 2026 bucket lists and plotting new adventures and achievements that don’t require a plus 1 to feel meaningful or validated. As one of the many empowered single women out there, I speak for us all when I say: enough with the cuff.

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