What is 'drafting season'? The dating trend you don't even know you're doing

There’s another new dating trend in town - and you probably don’t even know you’re doing it yourself.

Honestly, we don’t know how people are expected to hold down jobs and keep up with all of the dating trends; we reckon it’s a matter of time before the first university course starts up on understanding the likes of stashing, breezing, kittenfishing and all the rest like the now-standard ghosting and catfishing. We’re guessing people are going to just start dating anyone they can find, just so they don’t have to learn what all these new words mean.

But anyway, the new one you need to know about is ‘drafting season’.

In order to understand this, you first need to know about ‘cuffing season’ - which is the idea that, as the nights draw in and the weather gets colder in the autumn and winter months, you want to spend your time snuggling in with the heating and Netflix on with a serious significant other, rather than playing the field during the sun and games of the summer months.

But how does one find that significant other to enjoy cuffing season with?

Well, you need to select and then whittle down some possible companions - hence, the preceding period: ‘drafting season’.

Definition: drafting season is when you take dating more seriously at the end of summer and before the holidays (that’s American for Thanksgiving and Christmas) start.

So, in the summer, you’re playing the whole field, in September and October, you’re in ‘drafting season’, where you select a handful of possible mates, and then by November, you’re in to ‘cuffing season’ with your one lucky companion. And it’s often a subconscious thing - you don’t realise you’re narrowing down your favourites to just a single one, but it happens anyway.

And, as the circle of life continues, once Valentine’s Day comes around and things might need to get ‘actual serious’, presumably you’ll lose that person, free yourself up for spring when the clocks go forward and the sun comes out and then off we go again.

We’re pretty sure that’s what Tim Rice and Elton John had in mind anyway.

(Image: Elisabeth Tsung)