Image via Complex Original
Cuffing season is upon us. And, if you’re broke, Old Man Winter’s arsenal of biting winds, frigid temperatures, and snowstorms can be especially painful. While the rest of the world cuddles under a heated blanket, you’re scrolling Tinder at a bus stop and delivering exhales into your ice-cold hands. SMH. Summer can’t come fast enough.
But, miraculously, you meet someone who’s willing to let you buy them a drink, and things escalate quickly. You’ve found a person to alleviate your seasonal loneliness, but now you have to keep them, which isn’t easy when you’re paying an X-Box controller off in installments. Vex over finances and dating a little less with this helpful guide for surviving cuffing season on a budget.
Take Advantage of Seasonal Experiences
Ice skating, sledding, and sipping hot chocolate are incredibly frugal ways to camouflage your woeful credit limit. As an added bonus, these are winter charms that—while enjoyable in their own right—make a seamless transition to Instagram. A good suitor is one who can manufacture moments that are easily shared via the interwebs. Since your ability to splurge on bottle service and tropical vacations is hampered by financial restraints, you'll have to get creative.
Show Out by Staying In
The best way to save money while dating is to keep the entertainment in-house. That said, if you answer the door in elastic ankle sweatpants with TiVo-ed Shark Tank and a frozen Digiorno Rising Crust on deck, she will bounce like there's a Channing Tatum autograph session at a nearby Golden Retriever rescue shelter.
To ensure that your inevitable return to Tinder is on your own terms, stage your apartment so it's not so pathetic. Buy some theater candy, a bottle of wine, and cue up a movie she might actually enjoy. Pro tip: Films with Anna Kendrick or Emma Stone test very high in the female, age 22-30 demographic.
Dine Smarter, Not Worse
Paying your cable bill with a credit card shouldn't stop you and your girl from grabbing a decent meal once in a while; you just have to do some homework before making a reservation. Brewpubs are a good option because the fare prices are generally reasonable and the dining room will radiate an artisanal quality that reminds shorty of a rustic Mason jar lamp she bought on Etsy.com.
Bottom line, don't let crippling student loan debt prevent your from showing someone you adore a good time. Or, in other words, don't treat your girl to a la carte items at Boston Market, unless you want her to make out with an intern at her company holiday party.
Just Because it’s Free, Doesn’t Mean It'll Suck
Don't get it twisted. Free stuff usually sucks, but cuffing season is loaded with reasonably exciting, totally complimentary affairs. Keep your eyes out for concerts in the park, brewery tours, and other happenings that are rousing enough to definitively quell your heartbreaking checking account.
Go Straight to Dessert
Cuffing season and empty calories go together like Insane Clown Posse concerts and manipulated ankle bracelets. So, most girls will cosign the relatively inexpensive plan of grabbing dessert, even if it means compromising dinner. The combination of pie and hot chocolate is exponentially cheaper than two plates of pasta with duck confit and a round of craft cocktails. Quite simply, you need to get her on that sweet tip by any means necessary.
When she asks what the two of you are doing for food, respond with something like, "I'm not that hungry, but I could totally go for some FROYO!" If you get progressively more excited with each word of your retort, then she will wholeheartedly go along with the proposal. This sort of Jedi-with-an-appallingly-low-credit-score manipulation isn't easy, so practice in the mirror.
Keep Your Availability in Check
By feigning a hectic lifestyle, you'll portray yourself as a person of consequence while, simultaneously, reducing the number of nights you have available to spend $165 on dinner. As brilliantly villainous as this strategy is, you don't want to be dishonest with a person you're dating. So, actually do something productive with those nights off. Hit the gym, not the bong. Finish off a cover letter, not a frozen pizza. You get the idea.
Make Lifestyle Budget Cuts Wherever Possible
Dating while destitute means having to buy cereal that comes in bag, smelling like Walgreen's brand dandruff shampoo, and cutting back on ostentatious high tops. If you're not ready to swear off glow in the dark soles and name brand toothpaste, then you're not ready to assume an adorable pet name or articulate an opinion of unoaked chardonnay at a wine tasting. We're just stating the facts.
Just Dance
Other publications dispensing this kind of advice will tell you to avoid the exorbitant markup of drink menus all together. But, that's a wildly unrealistic expectation when you're dating. If you're out in the coitusphere looking for love, you will occasionally have to make economical decisions while a dubstep remix of Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" violently assaults your ear cavities.
You have two choices, really: Bite the bullet on a $90 bar tab or camp out on the dance floor with four hour's worth of Psy-inspired deep cuts. The only way to avoid the serial and costly ritual of ordering drinks is to promenade about the joint like an impoverished David Lee Roth. The choice is yours.
Join a Daily Deals Site
As a poverty-stricken Lothario, joining an on-line coupon site, like Groupon, LivingSocial, or Scoutmob, is a must. Besides the abundance of half-off tooth whitening and juice cleanse specials, these sites offer discounted theater tickets, cooking classes, and other worthwhile endeavors that women often find pleasant. Finally (and most importantly), these sites allow you to outsource the planning stages of a date, which prevents you from organizing something stupid, like a tandem game of Grand Theft Auto V or dragging shorty to a fantasy football cessation party at Tilted Kilt.
Just Be a Good (Albeit Broke) Dude
Dating on a budget, particularly during cuffing season, can be absolutely brutal. When every commercial you see features a dude lacing his red wine-dependent boo with a Lexus or Diamond Infinity Flower Pendant from Zales, life can feel like one giant Jean Claude Van Damme bicycle kick to the giblets. But, it's important to remember that being broke isn't a lifelong sentence to solitary confinement for your penis, especially if you're a decent, likable human being.
This cuffing season, volunteer your time to help other people. Go into a municipal building lobby and sponsor one of those Christmas lists from needy children. Lace an anonymous kid with a wool cap and remote control monster truck, even if you're living on Hot Pockets and ketchup sandwiches. Girls find that kind of sacrifice almost as attractive as custom Breitling watches and stock options. LOL, just playing. $20K timepieces and corner offices are infinitely more desirable than modestly philanthropic acts of kindness, but—given your situation—humanitarianism is still a really solid play.
Good luck out there, and happy holidays!
