If you want to find a match, try swiping this time of year

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, not Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa. Or even the 11th anniversary of Beyoncé’s surprise self-titled album. 

Nope. It’s cuffing season.

At least that’s what listener Antares thinks. She called Explain It to Me — Vox’s call-in podcast — to ask if cuffing season is real. 

“So in my understanding, cuffing season is an actual season which occurs between about October-ish and lasts until the weather starts to get good again,” she says. “During that time of year, people tend to want to find somebody to date — casual or otherwise.”

Antares called in for an ex-boyfriend-turned-platonic-friend who has been struggling on dating apps recently. “I wanted to tell him that cuffing season is right around the corner and he might have better luck. But is that true?”

The term “cuffing season” likely got its start in New York during the 2000s. The oldest reference online is from Musa Murchison. Murchison is now an artist and researcher, but back in 2008,  they were a student at Brooklyn College, hosting a weekly radio show called “Cuz We Said So Radio.” On November 17, 2008, the topic of discussion was to cuff or not cuff.

“‘Cuffing season’ is not jargon I made up. It was New York jargon,” Murchison says. And Murchison believes it’s real. “I don’t know many people who aren’t into a good snuggle when the winter rolls around. We’re designed to be together, whether that’s romantic or platonic.” 

I have to admit, Antares’s question sparked my inner Carrie Bradshaw. I couldn’t help but wonder … is cuffing season real? When the temperature drops, do our romantic prospects heat up?

To find out, I spoke with several people, including Alison Gemmill, a professor, demographer, and perinatal epidemiologist at the Hopkins Population Center. Gemmill says we don’t necessarily know if there are certain times of the year that people are more likely to get together. 

“In terms of actual sexual activity, there’s not good data,” she says. “One pretty strong hypothesis is that there are holidays that provide ample opportunities for people to engage in sexual activity.” 

Part of the reason we don’t know is that there’s just not much research out there. “Sexuality research is just underfunded generally in the US,” Gemmill says.

For now, we can rely on something that’s worked for centuries: counting backwards on our fingers. “In the US, we actually see a very strong peak in births around August or September,” Gemmill says. “It’s very evident, and it occurs from conceptions that are happening around November and December.” 

But without traditional data gathering, it’s hard to know whether this is causation or correlation. Also, not all dating results in sex, and not all sex results in a pregnancy or birth. “That’s why I think the evidence from the dating apps is really important,” she says. “We have to go to these nontraditional data sources as researchers to learn about basic human behavior, which is partnership.”

Enter Michael Kaye, the head of branding for OkCupid, a dating app that asks users a series of questions about their lifestyles and preferences. When potential matches enter a dater’s feed, they’re presented with a percentage score based on how compatible the two swipers are. “There are thousands of questions in our app,” he says. “They’re obviously related to dating, relationships, and sex, but also anything that’s top of mind for Gen Z and millennial daters. So if there’s a topic that you’re talking about with your friend or your family member or your coworker, we’re adding questions about that to the app, because chances are you’re probably talking about it on a date as well.” Daters’ answers can offer insight into what they’re looking for, and when. 

On this week’s episode of Explain It to Me, we find out what we know — and don’t know — about the best time of year to cuff it up. Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Kaye, edited for length and clarity. 

You can listen to Explain It to Me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

What are the peaks and valleys of dating throughout the year? 

If we start at the beginning of the year, there is a holiday for us within the dating space that’s called Dating Sunday. I thought people were pranking me when they told me. This is our Super Bowl. 

There’s a Super Bowl of dating? 

It’s the biggest day for online dating, and it falls on the first Sunday in January. So this is where we at OkCupid and Hinge and Tinder and Match.com tend to see a skyrocket in activity and engagement on the app. 

We then see another bump in activity during Valentine’s Day. So if we look back at Valentine’s Day 2024, there was a 109 percent increase in daters on OkCupid who said it’s more important for them to find their forever person right now over being able to date around for a while. 

Last year, between October and December there was a 26 percent increase  in people saying, “I’m looking for my forever person right now. I’m not looking for something casual. Great if you are. That’s just not for me.” 

How do those cuffing season metrics compare to our hot girl summer metrics? 

There are still bumps in activity and engagement, but the intent with which they’re going into this dating app experience is different. 

There are two areas that we look at to help us figure out a little bit more about user behavior. One is what they’re looking for, whether that’s long-term dating, short-term dating, or friendships. I will say most users don’t actually change that that often. So we also look at how daters are answering our intent-based questions: “What’s more important to you right now: love versus sex?” “What are you looking for right now?” “How long do you want your next relationship to last?” We pay a lot of attention to those questions and how people are responding to them.

Last year, there was a 14 percent decrease in people looking for love over sex June through October; that means that there’s an increase in people looking for something more casual.

How do you measure these peaks in dating? 

First, we’ll start with downloads. That really spikes during Dating Sunday. But then also we’re seeing likes and messages and conversations spike as well during this time. 

Sundays in general are a really great day for online dating throughout the entire year. Dating Sunday is significantly higher than those other Sundays, but if we look week by week, Sunday afternoons are the busiest time for dating apps in general. 

Do people match more during cuffing season, too?

We actually asked our daters this week if they believe cuffing season is real. What we’re finding right now is that 63 percent of people believe cuffing season is real, and they’re looking for love right now. And more than half of people said they are actually going on more dates during fall and winter compared to spring and summer.