Baby it’s cold outside!
Fall is finally here, and that means pumpkin spice everything, lesbians breaking out the flannel and beanies, and the burning desire to have someone to warm your bed and spend the holidays with.
When the weather turns cold and cuffing season is on the horizon, some people are desperately searching for someone to settle down with. And while that doesn’t have to be a toxic dating pattern, other people are hanging on to relationships they know they should end just so they don’t have to be alone during the holidays.
“Sledging” is a toxic Gen Z dating trend that is being popularized on social media and refers to someone who stays in a relationship through the colder months, only to dump them the second the snow thaws.
Staying with someone you’re not head over heels for just to stave off loneliness is nothing new, but the term is, and now the trend — a selfish and manipulative way to deal with the fear of being single during the holidays — is popping up more and more.
But what exactly is “sledging,” how toxic is this behavior, and are LGBTQ+ people more likely to fall prey to this tactic or be guilty of it themselves? To find out where the truth lies, we talked to Dr. Michael Grey — a licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified sexologist, the CEO of Grey Insight, and a graduate professor — and Sofie Roos, a bisexual licensed sexologist, relationship therapist, and author at the relationship magazine Passionerad.
What is ‘sledging’?
Getty Images
“Sledging” is the practice of staying in a dead-end relationship and stringing a significant other along through the colder months, just to break up with them the second the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. “Essentially, you don’t want to be alone for the winter, so you use the person until you no longer need them,” Dr. Grey tells PRIDE.
According to Roos, “while sledging is quite a new word, the phenomenon isn’t new at all,” and it comes from the word “sledge” or “sledding” because we use them “intensely during the winter, and then we put it away completely when the snow fades.”
Is it more harmful than other forms of breakups?
Unless both parties agree to use each other in the short term to get through the winter, the unsuspecting partner is being manipulated and has no clue their significant other is only staying with them because they don’t want to be alone during the holidays and will likely get a Dear John letter come spring.
“While all breakups hurt, sledging often feels as if you got tricked since you realize that the person never had any intentions of being longterm with you, but just used your company for their own sake,” Roos says.
Sledging someone is deceptive and robs the other person of the chance to find a meaningful connection with someone else. And while wasting someone’s time like this is cruel, the breakup also has the potential to be damaging. “The uncertainty of being blindsided by the end of this causes anxiety, stress, and, depending on how bad the sledging is, the individual can experience PTSD,” Dr. Grey explains. “You’re also just using someone for your own benefit without any regard to the other party because you don’t want to be alone; therefore, it’s manipulative, and says a lot more about your attachment wounds and mental health.”
Is it related to cuffing season?
Cuffing season — the period in the fall and winter when singles pair up to avoid being alone during the darker months — sounds similar to sledging, but cuffing season is about “consenting to casual hook-ups or less-than-perfect relationships,” the new toxic dating trend is about intentionally leading someone on for your own benefit, Dr. Grey says.
“Rather than seeking companionship, the sledger keeps someone around through cuffing season, not with the intention of building a relationship, but to use them as comfort to avoid being alone. Once that is over, they drop them,” he warns.
Why would someone do this to a person they’ve been dating?
Milanmarkovic78/Shutterstock
Roos explains that sledging “mostly stems from not wanting to be alone, or wanting to have great company (and sex)” when it’s too cold to go out and says that dating someone while knowing that you plan to dump them is all about ego and often is a sign of a “lack of maturity if a person avoids being honest with their intentions.”
According to Dr. Grey, the reasons people do this are varied and complex, from something as simple as being afraid to be alone in the darker months to feeling pressure to have a date for holiday gatherings to prioritizing their own “emotional comfort over the other person’s well-being” to telling themselves what they’re doing isn’t that bad.
“People like to avoid conversations, emotions, and discomfort, so they will prolong breakups or dealing with someone’s hurt until after the holidays because the new year is seen as a ‘safer’ time to do that,” Dr. Grey says.
The person doing the sledging may be checked out and is only in it for the sex and companionship in the fall and winter, but you’re wasting the other person’s time, which they could have spent finding love and affection with someone else.
Healing and moving forward
Dr. Grey says the first step to getting over it is acknowledging that it happened, ”It’s not just a breakup; it was a manipulation of your time, energy, attention, emotions, and expectations. It’s traumatic and causes people to mistrust others.” He also advises that you don’t give your energy to people who don’t deserve it. “The person was immature and incapable of being transparent and honest in a relationship, and intentionally hurt you because of their own issues, and as Cardi B once said, ‘I wish you well…. In Hell, BURN IN HELL….’ Don’t give more energy to someone who doesn’t respect you,” he quips.
From there, the best thing you can do is set firmer boundaries for the future and learn the red flags you should be paying attention to so that this doesn’t happen to you again. “You start seeing familiar patterns, acknowledge the red flags, and move along,” Dr. Grey explains. “This is not Six Flags, where the more flags, the more fun you have… because it’s not fun being hurt.”
And take Roos’ advice and focus on having some fun in the sun after someone cruelly breaks up with you when the winter is over “Focus on the summer ahead of you, and try to learn something from the experience and use it when looking for further relationships,” she says.
Warning signs to look out for
Monkey Buisness Images/Shutterstock
Avoiding talking about the future or making plans past the winter months is a huge red flag, and you should “tread lightly,” Dr. Grey says.
You should also pay attention if they are slow to communicate, only seem to want a surface-level connection, or only want you around for social functions or events. “If you feel it in your gut that you feel used, listen and honor that feeling, don’t ignore it, or tell yourself it’s in your head; chances are it’s not,” he says.
Are LGBTQ+ people more likely to engage in or experience ‘sledging’?
Unfortunately, there aren’t any studies out there about LGBTQ+ people and sledging, but Dr. Grey says that since the dating pool is smaller, queer people “may hold onto relationships longer than they should, making them more susceptible to engaging in sledging or being sledged.” There may also be added social pressure to “be accepted, or not wanting to be seen alone in family or friend groups, that could lead someone to sledging a partner they probably should have broken up with.
But the LGBTQ+ community may also avoid sledging or may recognize warning signs earlier than their hetero counterparts because they have an “increased awareness of emotional safety and healthier communication styles,” which means that “conversations about relational expectations may become more explicit.” Queer people may also be less likely to sledge because they may not have the same social pressure to attend “social gatherings with a significant other, or it may not be safe for them in a non-affirming home, so they may avoid relationships altogether.”
Sources cited:
Dr. Michael Grey, a licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified sexologist, the CEO of Grey Insight, and a graduate professor.
Sofie Roos, a bisexual licensed sexologist, relationship therapist, and author at the relationship magazine Passionerad.
