So what do we do? Start cuffing season, run to online dating sites and break up 2 weeks before Christmas. It’s called the “Holiday Season Effect”. In my recent interview in Bustle, author Natalia Lusinski described it best: “So I guess the relationship thaws out when the snow does”. For many, the holidays are times to celebrate family, life, love, and personal goals. However, when you’re single it can be a time of anxiety. It’s a reminder that you are single; either because you are around family or because your family reminds you of the fact. What’s the solution? Get in a seasonal psuedo-relationship so that you can feel better about yourself, then break up after the season is over! Despite it sounding sexually aggressive, it’s actually a monogamous period for many around the world. In Macedonia, it’s called “tying”.
According to match.com online dating peaks in mid-November till mid-December, then peaks again January 3rd, which officially begins the “Online Dating Season”. NYE, a time where you reflect on what you want in the next year and if you were single the previous year watching other people kiss and cuddle doesn’t have the best impact on your ego as you start the new year. Securing a partner for those months is a way to fill that void.
Then of course, there is the “you’re not worth spending another dime on” and the “let me bolt before I have to spend another holiday with you” types. Who conveniently opt to break-up before Thanksgiving or on Dec 11. The holiday season can be especially challenging if you’ve recently broken up with someone. While everyone will tell you you’ll get over it, it’s painful to go through the holidays alone when you were expecting to have a partner with you. If you are suffering silently and unsure if you’re coping properly, here are some things that will help you answer that question:
Do your family/friends tell you that they notice a change in you?
Let's face it, sometimes family/friends are on target because they are experiencing the relationship through your experience. What you tell them is what they base their opinion on. They are the first people to notice change in your mood, attitude, or personality. They are mentioning things based on seeing this change. If it is marked, they will be the first to notice because what your normative patterns are have become different based on your emotional reaction to the end of the relationship.
Are you drinking/eating/recreational drugging more than usual?
When you are coping with things you don't want to deal with, you can turn to something to help you cope. You might not be aware that you are bingeing. If it's excessive or other people are telling you you're being excessive, it might be more than usual. Self-medicating or bingeing are efforts to mask symptoms that you are trying to repress.
Are you upset more than usual?
Sometimes frequent emotional outbursts about things that cannot change is you fighting with yourself. Circumstances around the person can change, people take a longer time to change. People don't change because you want them to; they change because they want to. Circumstances that you were aware of before getting into the relationship don't change. If they were emotionally unavailable, they have to work through that before they become emotionally available. If they weren't sure they could commit, you might not be the one to make them commit. Both situations require that the person be in a relationship to change that. In essence, you are upset with yourself and grieving the loss of the relationship and your former life. Grieving the loss of the relationship is expected, but intense emotion and dejection are symptoms of something clinical.
Did you replace things on your list with the things the other person wants?
I'm not talking about compromising. I'm talking about defining what you want based on someone else to please them. Your desires, lifestyle requirements, and dreams are the things that you thought of as the right things to create the lifestyle you wanted as a result of 2 people. Not just one that acquiesced to the other. It can create a loss of your sense of self that can result in persecutory thoughts.