Chrystal Evans Hurst explains cuffing season, when singles seek winter relationships to avoid loneliness, then expands the metaphor to show how people get trapped by habits, busyness, and past wins instead of pursuing real freedom. She warns that treating cuffing season as a shortcut creates emotional chains that function like slavery.
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Do you even know what cuffing season is? Well, if you don't, let me tell you. And if you do, let me tell you something too. Hi, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst, and if you're joining me here for the first time, welcome. I am here sharing videos on YouTube and Facebook every Sunday night. This also turns into an audio version for my podcast. You should be subscribed somewhere, honey. Maybe click the link on YouTube to subscribe and make sure you hit that bell for notifications. Follow me on Facebook or make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Google, Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. And then we just turned on the lights for Pandora. Aren't we something? But I'm here every week sharing content with you that I first share inside of the Inner Circle. We have already been on here over an hour talking about all the things, all the things. And it's a family discussion, kind of like a morning radio show where we enjoy ourselves and then we get to it. And you are about to be here for the get to it part. Let's talk about cuffing season. What is it anyway? Well, listen, I had to Google because I kind of sort of know what it is, but I also wanted to make sure I wasn't making up in my own mind what I thought it was. So I found a few websites. What is cuffing season? One website defines it as on brides.com. If you're on brides.com, why are we concerned about cuffing season? But anyway, it occurs in late fall, early winter. It's when singles who were happy dating around in the summertime start looking for a special person to settle down with for the colder months. Some of these relationships last only for the winter, while others can lead to long-term relationships. That's what brides.com says. WebMD. Why is cuffing season on WebMD? But it is. It says, winter is coming. Do you know what that means? Cuffing season is upon us. And if you happen to follow the hashtag cuffing season, you'll learn that September is drafting and October, that month is the tryout phase. This has nothing to do with sports. Cuffing season, here's the definition, is the search for someone to shack up with or exclusively date during the holidays and colder winter months. It's a trend. There's not a whole lot of scientific data about it, but if you talk to anybody under 40 maybe, but definitely under 30, they will totally know what you're talking about. Quote I found from Lisa Marie Bobby says, "In the summer, people are flittering around like dragonflies. In the winter, it's cold and dark, and it can be very, very lonely." There are other things that happen during the fall that we know of. In the winter, it gets darker, the days get shorter, depression gets higher, people feel lonelier, grief Life gets deeper. There's all kinds of things that happen in the fall and in the winter to our psyches and to our hearts. And being with other human beings, experiencing the warmth of someone who at least for a season says they want to be with you supposedly makes us feel better. Except what if it doesn't? What if cuffing season is actually just a fall and winter situation and it leaves you not actually better off than when you went through it? If you take the shortcut. Cuffing is a shortcut. So for those of y'all who are single, let me just talk to you for just a second. And for those of you who aren't single, you're happily married or just married and not happy, let me share a couple of things with you. There are lots of things that we will do when we feel some kind of way about our lives. Cuffing is only one of them. How do you know when you are in a season of summer? You know, there's a reason why they call it a summer fling, because the days are beautiful and the weather is great and everything is rosy and people have promise and there's lots of fun and everything says smile and the colors say happy. And in winter, things get dark, dreary. The colors turn deeper and richer, hunter greens and rich reds and maroons and dark blues. It says, come away with me and be still. We want the blankets and the candles. We want the warmth. And so instead of a summer fling, we have winter bays, like my bay. Like, baby, cuffing season. Woman's Health magazine says that cuffing season is in the Urban Dictionary. It popped up about 10 years ago. And if you're not familiar with the concept, it's the time of year when the weather starts to turn cooler and people start seeking relationships to get them through upcoming long, chilly months. It's the desire that you have to be cuffed to someone so you don't have to be by yourself. So literally, this can mean somebody that you just need to lay in your bed. Like, can we just keep that real? Like, literally, I don't want to be in the bed by myself. And so many of you have had this experience, whether it was the summer or the winter, but some of you girls right now are thinking about who you're going to allow into your space so you don't have to be by yourself. And you need— I was gonna say big sister Chrystal Hurst— you need Auntie Chrystal, but you probably need Mama Chrystal Hurst to look you in the eyes right now and say, girl, don't do it. Don't do it. So let me just start with that. Don't do it. Have a higher value of yourself than you do for a short-term fix, because I can guarantee you that if you go in just not wanting to be alone and find somebody who's willing to just be with you because they happen to be alone, It's a short-term fix that actually will carve out an even greater gap, an even greater crater in your soul than you had before you did it. It's not worth it for a long litany of reasons. You know, there was a cuffing season before there was a cuffing season. And so there are women who are right now, as I'm recording this, joining me in the live chat saying, because they've been there, don't do it, girls. Let me just go ahead and show you what they're saying, because you are watching this after the fact. They're watching it while I'm recording it. So let me just go on and show you. Cuffing season is a shortcut. Don't do it. Brenda says, do you actually fall for it? Do guys fall for it? Some of them are totally aghast. Oh my goodness, what are we talking about right now? Cuffing is very short-term, and I realize that some of our girls who are watchers of the YouTube or the Facebook, or you are listeners to the podcast, you are in your 20s and you're like, you know, I don't have the extra, Chrystal Hurst, to be in the inner circle, but I'm here for everything that you download. So I'm talking to you. And so I want to invite you right now, if you are, you know, a millennial or a Gen Zer, you need to comment, let me know you're here and you got the message. Tarnisha says, don't do it, flee from cuffing season and move to Florida. Jacqueline says it's not worth it. They're here, all the aunties are here trying to tell you. So I just want to start with that. If you know what I'm talking about and you've been contemplating it, and if you started it, it's not too late to say never mind. How do you even know if you are— I mean, like, these websites, y'all, are like, how do I find a seasonal bae? Like, how to do it? Okay, here's how to tell if you are in a cuffing season kind of relationship, um, because it ends. And if you find that this is a cyclical pattern for you, you're in a relationship and then it ends, and then you get happy again, and then he's no good for me. Can you see yourself with this person? Are you happy that they're here? Do they get on your last nerve and you're thinking, actually, do I want this person in my space? Did it happen organically, or did you go out looking to fill a hole? You know, things have seasons. And when you go out knowing that I'm gonna go to an apple orchard and pick apples because right now they're in full bloom, but I don't plan on coming out here to pick in the middle of January because I know there'll be nothing blooming, then that might be a sign that you're in cuffing season. If you go into the club, if you're doing things only because this is time of the year. You're going to church because y'all, sometimes the church is the new club when it comes to the singles ministry, because you're looking for someone. You don't normally go, but now you're going because you're hoping you'll meet someone. You may be subject to the cuffing season mentality because you're needing a quick fix and you're allowing the pain of the upcoming seasons to drive you to pick fruit that's ripe right now but won't necessarily be ripe later. Here's the problem. Cuffing season is bigger than dating. It's a mentality that says, I'm going to do what I need to do to experience some level of satiation in the moment. Some of us are cuffed to other things. And I think that what I would tell you, other than don't do it, about other things. They apply. Some of the things that I would tell you about cuffing season specifically applies to some of these other things. There are other things, y'all, that we're cuffed to. Some of us are cuffed to busyness. We get busy because it feels better or it fits some need to be needed. We get distracted. We get numbed out. We get addicted to things to keep our mind off of the fact that life is not the way we want it, or that it's not— that we're alone and we don't wanna be. So we get addicted to Netflix or series on Hulu, knowing that there are other things we need to do with our time, but we're cuffed to those things to replace the feeling that we don't want to process. We can be cuffed to our past wins, our accolades, our accomplishments. We can be cuffed to success. And so we keep doing things, we keep striving and stretching beyond the things that God would have us do because we're addicted to the reward that comes from winning. And you keep not dealing with the thing, the thing that says, "Who am I if I'm not winning? Who am I if I am not?" not distracted, if I'm bored, if I don't know what to do? Who am I if I'm not watching TV? Who am I if I am avoiding pain by just staying busy all the time? Who am I? Who are you if you are single and you don't have someone to go to the Christmas party with or to be in your bed at night? That's what it means. You cuff yourself to something else to avoid experiencing the reality, the joy and the pain of freedom. You were created to be free, but freedom comes with a level of responsibility. And that responsibility sometimes isn't easy to carry, but it doesn't mean you exchange your freedom. You know what cuffing really is? Cuffing is slavery. If you are cuffed to anything, meaning I am literally, or metaphorically, getting in bed with someone or something and orienting my life around someone or something to avoid the real something that I say that I want, what you really are is enslaved. Habits can enslave you. Relationships can enslave you. The time that you spend doing things you know you don't need to be doing can enslave you. Wasted time can enslave you. Spending can enslave you. So how in the world do you deal with cuffing season, the real one or the metaphorical one? Because I realize a lot of us got cuffed to a lot of things when COVID hit. And we haven't been able to uncuff yet. Well, the first thing is you need to figure out what you really want, because operating in freedom means you're free to move toward what you really want. Trust me, you don't want somebody who's just in your bed for 4 months. Trust me, trust me, you don't want the short-lived excitement of spending money you don't have to be in debt for the next 10 years to pay for what it only took you 10 months to buy. Trust me, trust me, you don't wanna be cuffed to that anger that you hold onto every time that person comes around. You don't wanna always be boiling over when they're in your space or in your face. Trust me, trust me, you don't want to be cuffed to busyness and have years of regret of your life with how you spent your time. So in order to avoid being enslaved, you have to decide what you want. You need a clear vision of what you want. And sometimes this is unclear for many of us, but the beauty of it is you can get clear really easy. Let me tell you one of the fastest ways to know what you want. Get on social media and see what everybody else wants or has, and which one pings your heart the greatest. It doesn't mean it's yours, it doesn't mean you need it, but it'll show you the cracks. I want a home, a beautiful home. Okay. I want a great marriage. Okay. I want financial freedom. I want to work for myself. Okay. I want to take vacations. Okay. I want to be able to recite God's word or know God's word or to be able to have a balanced family. Okay. Like, let the comparison teach you. Let it stop there. You can see a beautiful marriage or a great couple who's been dating for a while that seems headed towards marriage and want that. You need to know what you want. You just have to decide in advance not to take the shortcut. The shortcuts don't get you where you want. They'll give you a form of what you want, but they won't give you the real thing. Then you have to consider what you're willing to do to get it. Cuffing season is a shortcut. It's you saying, I want what it takes, or I want what I want, but I'm not willing to do what it takes to get it. So I'm just gonna go get a shorter version of what I really want. But what that does is all it does is deepen the desire for what you wanted when you got started and creates a bigger hole that you still haven't filled. This is like being cuffed to food. One of the principles of one of many books I've read about eating and healthy and being healthy. It just says you have to eat the foods that actually will fill you up, that have a high nutritional value, and that will fill you up. And then you'll realize that your appetite for other things will go away. Because sometimes you're hungry, and in hunger, you grab a Coke and a Reese's peanut butter cup. That did nothing to satisfy your hunger. In fact, it creates a greater hunger for more of the foods that aren't good for you in your future. So the only way to avoid things that you shouldn't be eating is to fill up on the things that you should be eating until your taste buds change, and then you realize that what I'm eating is actually good for me and I like it. So you have to fill up first on what's good for you. Until you lose the taste for what isn't so good for you. So you have to decide what you're willing to really want and then what you're willing to do to get it. And then here's the hard part: whatever you're willing to do to get it, you have to set boundaries around yourself so that you stay in your lane. What cuffing does is create boundaries. It doesn't feel like that, but that's what it does in the short run. The boundaries are, this is not my forever person, but I gotta be home because he's gonna be home. We were gonna watch a movie tonight. Boundaries around your finances. I wanna be free financially, but now I have a boundary because on top of my regular bills, my regular bills, I have to pay this credit card note or this car note for this car I shouldn't have bought. Boundaries. I'm angry every time I'm around this person. You know, I can't function, I can't see straight. You're not free. So either way, you are a slave. But what freedom does is says, I'm free to choose what I'm enslaved to. I'm going to be enslaved to this budget because I want to have freedom later. I'm going to be enslaved in this marriage, surrendered in this marriage, committed in this marriage because I want the blessings that flow from a marriage that honors God. I am going to be committed, enslaved to this diet this way of eating. I'm going to be Whole30 or Pagan or intermittent or whatever it is because I want the freedom of living a long, healthy life. Cuffing is a shortcut that enslaves you with no long-term freedom benefit. So at the end of the day, what I want you to hear me say is don't let him get in your bed. Don't cuff yourself unnecessarily, prematurely. Incorrectly. But I also want to ask you who are not cuffed in the literal sense of the word, what are you cuffed to? Because if you're going to be a slave anyway, I would rather decide what I'm hooked to and be free and long-term free than be enslaved to something in the short run that only leaves cut marks where the cuffs have been holding my hands. So you got to get clear on your boundaries because cuffing season will end. Oh, it will. And when it does, where will you be standing? Will you be more free? Or will you be more enslaved? Will you be more whole, or will the gap only be deeper? It's up to you. Anything that pulls you into it that you don't intend to stay in, or you know you shouldn't be in, you are cuffed. Now I know some of y'all done already heard, you know, the lyrics Because Cuffing Season is a whole, you know, it's a whole thing, it's a whole song, it's a whole situation. One of the lines says, baby, the tree's up, you should come over, you don't need a reason to share your love with mine. Cuffing in season, and babe, I'm boiling over you like an orange cinnamon clove and brandy wine. And it goes on to say some other things that I'm not going to talk about on here because some of y'all already know the song. Don't lie, don't, don't, don't, don't lie. But really, you don't need a reason to share your love with mine. Really, you don't need a commitment to actually my whole best life to share your love with mine? Really? Just whatever, whenever will do? I'll take whatever, however you give it? Really? There's no responsibility, there's no commitment, there's no ongoingness to this. Just come over and fix my loneliness. I mean, truth for some of y'all, come over and fix my horniness, whatever it is. No, there should be a reason. Some of you put more time and effort into finding a plumber to unclog your pipes in your kitchen than you do into finding somebody to unclog everything else in your life. You just let any old person come on in and do any old thing regardless of their ratings. You know, when you look for ratings, I want to know that they have 5 stars, but if it's 5 stars from one person, that don't count. I need the 5 stars to come from like, you know, at least 49 people. It's proof in the pudding. You want to know that that person, that that person has a track record. So when they show up to fix your plumbing, and I mean that literally and metaphorically, when they show up to fix your plumbing, that they are good for the work, that you can trust them in your house. Why would you let anyone in your house that you have no basis for trust? Why would you let anything in your house that has a track record of not being good for you? So in a metaphorical sense, the, you know, the anger, the money, the habits that you know don't have good ratings, why do you continually let it in? Why are you continually cuffed to things that don't serve you? Stop making excuses because it's how I've always been. Stop making excuses because this is what I've always done. Stop making excuses because everybody is doing it, or yet everybody is talking about it, or even better, there's songs about it, or worse, there are challenges on social media about it. Who cares. You want to be free or what? And freedom comes at a cost, usually comes because you're willing to do what other people aren't. You're willing to set boundaries that other people are not. You're willing to choose what you will be tied to instead of what's easy. You'll attach to something that's not as culturally And not everybody's doing it. That's the bottom line. You want to live and have what the masses don't, then that means you don't do what the masses are doing. I mean, I'm sitting here literally thinking back and I'm like, was I doing cuffing season before cuffing season was a thing? Like, I'm, I'm literally thinking back. I'm like, was it the wintertime? Huh. And what I can unequivocally tell you without any hesitation in my voice, don't do it. Don't waste your time. Don't give him the pleasure of having the best of you without the commitment to you. Don't decrease your standards for a short-term fix. And I'm saying that to you very, very straightforward. So if you're 23, 27, 19, 32, 37, 47, girl, stop wasting your time. But you do have to choose what else you're going to be cuffed to. Where else are you going to invest your life? Because in order to experience the fruit, you have to nurture the root. And maybe the reason why you keep doing things that are cuffing you to bad things, things that are not productive for your life, because you're not nurturing the root, which means then you're not producing the fruit in your life you really want. Mary Mary said, take the shackles off my feet so I can dance. I want you to dance. I want you to dance. And you can't do that in life when you allow the cuffs, the short-term fixes that the world tells you that are gonna be all right. If you live according to that mantra you won't dance. And I'm here for your freedom. So here's to freedom. Here's to freedom. Here's to being cuffed to the things that you choose that bring freedom and not cuffed to the things that will keep you going in circles. That's not the kind of circle I'm all about. And that's not the kind of circle I want you in. So All right, now this was it. Hope this was helpful. And if you want to be brave, go on and tell me in the comments what has been cuffing you. And if it's a boy, say so. If it's something else, say so. And go on and tell me what you're going to trade that in for. What do you really want? Who do you really want to be and what are you willing to do to get there? Okay. Have a great day. And if I don't see you till next time, have a great week and I will see you next week. Hopefully. Yeah, the whole thing is really all about the chat. Like, seriously, I am here for the chat, which is why— that's why I have to like straight up and fly right, because y'all be having the most and I'm like trying to deliver something by looking to camera. Yep, yep, yep, I'm seeing— I'm catching up on the chat. Y'all were over here charging me up. You caught that, Jackie? You caught Mama Chrystal Hurst is on Front Street.
