In the cold, together or alone

Fall is the season when many singles start hunting for someone to cozy up with for the holidays. It's that grand desire to come in from the cold weather and have a lovely somebody ready to cuddle up with while sipping marshmallow inundated hot chocolate, reading a good book or perhaps watching a DVD. That's what many of my friends have led me to believe. However, as much as I tell myself, it is not necessary to come home to another handsome, warm body, I can't help but lie in bed at night with my comforter piled on a blanket providing a protective covering on my bedsheet from the cold at night, eyes wide, thinking this is better accomplished by having another person with 98.6° body temprature next to me than feeling like a tree was felled on me. But is there something innate in us that drives us to seek out relationships in the fall and winter; something biological or cultural?

The cold season naturally makes us want to stay indoors, to stay warm and with this season, avoid catching influenza. As such, I find that being with someone special to do that with accomplishes several important items: you are guaranteed to be warm, indoors, and the company of another person has been shown to increase one's mood and immune system, thus fending off cold bugs. Biologically, starting a fall romance is sensical. Being in a relationship does wonders for one's health--provided that special someone doesn't beat you with bamboo. So what's so difficult? As the 8 million or so culturally-enhanced New Yorkers will tell you, the problem lies in finding a *special* someone. Hell, you can find any able bodied person in a bar, a grocery store, or prison, but that *special* someone you're willing to suffer those cold nights with repeatedly, that's a tall order.

One of my friends who is notoriously commitment-phobic but wants a commitment (I can't explain the dichotomy), said to me that it's cold and he's feeling "relationshippy," but he hasn't found anyone worthy of making a commitment. His friend recently broke up with a girlfriend and is finding the single life hard to deal with; mopey guy just hasn't gotten back into the single swinging lifestyle yet. Both of them suffer from the "so many hot women; none that ring my bell" syndrome--they can have their pick for a one-night-stand or short term love affair, but wanting a woman to stick around, that's like asking a man to surrender his reproductive organs. I guess it is exactly like that; afterall, there's no more play time or picking up hot girls, or kissing random women, or meeting a woman who fits your fancy and giving her a good shag. For some young strapping twentysomething guy, that's asking a great deal. Hell, most thirtysomethings are like that as well. But I suspect, this fall weather it making something churn in my friends.

The fall is the beginning of the holiday season when togetherness is the main theme. Halloween is for group parties and trick-or-treating, Thanksgiving is family and friends time, Christmas is self-explanatory, then comes New Year's when you are supposed to have someone incredible to kiss and properly welcome the new year AND if all goes well with that, that person will stick around for a wildly shagadelic Valentine's Day followed by wild partying for St. Patrick's Day. Huh... I guess that John Mayer song is right. It's best to start a relationship in the cold and if it's gonna end, wait until St. Patty's Day to break up.

But is that really all there is to the fall-relationship hunger? There must be something more?! More than wanting not to be that one person on the street not bundled up with someone else or ice-skating with someone holding your hand? In the season of togetherness, I think wanting to not be alone is the reason. That's when it is time to seek comfort in existential philosophy and realize we're all basically alone: no one can know you and you can't know anyone else. And we're all going to die someday; yes, all alone. I'm sure that's not very comforting, but neither is death's kiss which, guess what, is very cold and you will spend eternity in, yes, the COLD. Well, I supposed that's a better motivation for someone to want to couple up in the fall. If you're going to be in death's cold hands for eternity, a few months with a special someone during the coldest months is enough to make you feel alive and death by influenza will have to hold off for at least one more year.