Society pushes the notion that to find happiness we need to be in a committed relationship

Have you heard of the term “Cuffing Season”? Coined by Urban Dictionary in 2011, it’s defined as the period between autumn and winter when “people who would normally be single or promiscuous find themselves, along with the rest of the world, desiring to be ‘cuffed’ or tied down by a serious relationship”, writes Louise O'Neill.

Data from Facebook seems to support this thesis. The company looked at statistics from 2010 to 2011, focusing on changes to ‘relationship status’ (‘engaged’ and ‘ in a relationship’ turning to ‘single’ or ‘divorced’) and analysing it to see trends in what months couples were getting together. While not an exact science, they could see an increase in people changing their relationship status to ‘in a relationship’ between October and February, and then changing it back to ‘single’ in March. Apparently, “there’s a grand stretch in the evening,” now equals “it’s not you, it’s me”.