By Tiffany Ma
It was just another Friday night in October when my friend texted me: “It’s stoplight themed. So make sure you wear green.” For those unfamiliar, stoplight themed parties are exactly what they sound like—wear red if you’re taken, yellow if it’s complicated, and green if you’re single. I politely declined, but not before realizing I’d be the only one wearing green out of my friends.
As I head into the winter of my junior year, one thing has become glaringly obvious: nearly everyone I know is entering a relationship. The pressure to pair up becomes palpable when it feels like everyone around you is doing the same, and there’s constant chatter about how crucial a relationship is to your college experience—especially now, with cuffing season heating up and the holidays just around the corner. And at that moment, I had to wonder: is “cuffing season” actually real?
Cuffing season is essentially a scramble to find your other half just in time for the colder months—because, honestly, what fun is pumpkin picking alone? And wouldn’t it be nice to have someone by your side for all those fall and winter traditions? After all, you could finally indulge your relatives at Thanksgiving with their expectations of double-legacy babies.
It seems like everyone I know has fallen into this cycle of scouting, drafting, preseason, and full-on cuffing, but who’s to say this is a recipe for success?
When I mention that I’m 20 years old and have never been in a relationship, the reactions I get range from surprised at best and unsettled at worst. But really, why is that so horrifying? Is it societal expectations, or is Ithaca just that hard to navigate alone? If cuffing season really is a thing and upperclassmen are all suddenly itching to “settle down,” then I have to ask—how much does “settling” have to do with “settling down”?
Thanks to my extensive knowledge of Sex and the City, there’s a theory that aims to answer this: the Taxi Cab Theory. It suggests that love isn’t really about commitment, but all about timing—or maybe it’s about being so exhausted from bad first dates that you just give in. But before we dive too deep, let’s go back to where it all started: a classic Sex and the City
episode—season 3, episode 8—where Charlotte York becomes engaged after falling head over heels in just two weeks.
Cue Charlotte, ever the hopeless romantic, who gushes, “Sometimes you just know, it’s like magic, it’s fate.”
And that’s when Miranda Hobbes, the ultimate realist, explains: “It’s not fate, his light is on—that’s all. Men are like cabs. When they’re ready, their light turns on. They wake up one day and decide they’re ready to settle down, have babies, and boom—the next woman they pick up is the one they’ll marry. It’s not destiny, it’s dumb luck.”
I’ll admit, there might be some truth to this theory, but I can’t help but wonder—how does the Taxi Cab Theory, with its focus on thirty-something relationships and marriage, relate to us, here and now, as Cornell students?
Believe it or not, this theory might apply even more to us than it did back in the Sex and the City era of the early 2000s. With dating apps and social media making it easier than ever to see endless options, the ‘grass is greener’ mentality is more present than ever. In 2024, with all the swiping, ghosting, and Instagram-stalking, maybe commitment is still all about timing. Eventually, after enough bad dates and cold Ithaca nights, we just… settle.
Call me a hopeless romantic, but I refuse to believe that love and commitment are mutually exclusive. Miranda’s theory implies that men don’t want to commit until they randomly wake up one day and decide they’re ready, and while there’s probably some truth to that, it also feels a bit fatalistic. Timing matters, sure, but connection—real connection—isn’t something you can rush or just stumble into.
So, here’s to not settling for the sake of settling down. Because no matter what season it is, the right time will come, and when it does, it’ll be about more than just a light turning on.
Tiffany Ma is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].