Don’t drop your standards just because it’s dark outside
Matt Shipley (He/Him) // Contributor
Anais Bayle // Illustrator
It’s impulse dating season! Mercury’s slowly descending towards zero, the wind and rain are turning our skin into Braille novels, and the sun’s cheating on us with our friends south of the Equator. A good bunch of us are subconsciously spending more time on Tinder, wondering if anyone else is shivering violently enough to settle for us. Even in class, there are always a couple of people in the room that make the tension fly like radiation, their eyes flicking less-than-subtly over their classmates’ faces. All in all, it’s a rough time to be single.
With that said, it’s also unequivocally the worst time of the year to look for a partner, and I speak from extensive personal experience. As toxic as it sounds, being proud to present our partners to our families and friends is a huge part of a relationship, and guess what? If we’re living away from our families in the Vancouverian winter, chances are we won’t be seeing them very often. We won’t be going out to the beach, or to the trails, and we’ll be spending much more time at home watching Netflix. In the winter, we’re less worried about finding someone who fills in our blanks, and more worried about finding anyone who can replace the six empty microwave popcorn bags next to us on the couch.
These days, with the rise of online dating apps, cuffing season can easily turn into an all-out minefield. Dating becomes more of a stock-market-esque trading ritual, but with an added twist: trading up, or managing to land a relationship with someone out of our league, isn’t a good thing, because as we trade up, they’re trading down. Essentially, we’re setting ourselves up for heartbreak when the sun comes back out in April. On the other side of the coin, if we trade down, we’re putting ourselves in a tremendously awkward situation. Nobody in their right mind likes to break hearts because of mistakes they made, but it always seems to happen.
To all of the classmate dreamers out there, let me remind you of something before you take that step. That person you’re looking at? That’s your classmate! You’re trapped together for the semester at least, if not the year and beyond. If anything goes wrong, you’ll be forced to stare daggers across the room at each other until what feels like the end of time. In the absolute worst case, you’ll try something with someone in your friend group, then when it blows up in your face, your friends will devolve into disarray as a turf war breaks out over who killed who. It sounds ridiculous, and maybe it is, but I’ve seen it happen. Actually, it was definitely my fault. Don’t ask.
As difficult as it is, it’s so important to sit down with yourself and take some time to think before you leap headfirst into a relationship this season. Ask yourself if they will make you happy. Ask yourself if you’re only doing it to have some much-needed physical closeness, or if you’re genuinely looking for something special. Most importantly, ask yourself two questions:Is this someone I would be ecstatic to share the foreseeable future with?And, almost more importantly, do they see me the same way? If not, well, grab yourself a weighted blanket and revel in the blissful simplicity that comes with being single. It’s a blessing in disguise, I guarantee it.
