If you haven’t heard it yet, there’s a peculiar alternative amongst the traditional dating trends. It’s simple, yet tricky if you don’t know how to handle it. And just like “friends with benefits”, your feelings can get caught in the friendly fire.
What we are talking about here is “holidating”: roping in a friend or an “acquaintance” into accompanying you to different holiday events through the year such as Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving dinners, etc.1 Basically, what you get is a platonic holiday date, no strings attached.
Although it may sound like a questionable dating tactic, it serves the purpose of shielding you from annoying common inquiries: parents asking about your relationship status, friends telling you to settle down already with and the always hurtful “single again on New Year’s Eve?”
Practically, the main reason is to avoid social struggle, awkward situations, problems and judgement from others for being single during the holidays.
“When you’re holidating, you don’t call or text each other at any other time, and if you bumped into one other at the shops you’d probably say hey but not actually stop and make conversation – unless it was Christmas, of course. You might contact each other a little before holidays so you can arrange plans, presents and dress codes and stuff like that, but that’s about it.” – Hayley Soen, The tab.3
But there’s more here than meets the eye with this holiday trend, since being alone during these social gatherings can be particularly hard according to Ph.D., psychologist Guy Winch: “Lonely people dread the holiday season more than any other time of year. Watching everyone around them connect to those they love makes their own feelings of emotional isolation even more profound. Indeed, the holidays can make loneliness feel especially excruciating.”4
And, what’s worse, “Loneliness is not only painful emotionally but it can have a devastating impact on one’s long term psychological and physical health. Loneliness predisposes us to depression and increases our risk of Alzheimer’s disease, it suppresses our immune system functioning, it stresses our cardiovascular systems, and when chronic, it affects our very longevity.”4
Generally, nobody wants to be alone during the holidays, it’s hard and painful. But that’s no reason why you should rush yourself into a committed relationship.
Maybe, what you need is a temporary holidate instead. Meaning, someone to set some rules up and common goals down to have a softer ride through holiday family reunions.
Nonetheless, bringing in someone to share these overwhelming moments can actually be comforting. Besides, if you get along, you can easily pass through those annoying family picture moments, awkward interviews about your life’s decisions and those horrible comparisons while sharing a laugh or two and exchanging family stories.
Holidating is about shaking off that social pressure of being in a committed relationship. It all depends on how you’re planning to introduce this person to your family and friends, but the idea is to have “someone” to share these occasionally lonely moments.
But remember: setting the rules is just as important as finding the right partner, you’re supposed to be just friends.
If you spend too much time together, are available almost all the time for each other or wind up in bed, it can get messy. Same with sharing feelings, personal lives’ facts and meeting outside holiday events.2 If you have any of these described elements, you might actually be dating and heading up towards a serious relationship.
Sure, that’s not the worst thing that could happen if you’re not worried about it. But if it isn’t what you’re looking for, then you might want to keep things clean and clear by setting some boundaries first.
And this is a particular note to have in mind when heading towards the romantic cuffing season. Things are supposed to remain strictly platonic, like a company thing most of all.
However, we all know how human relationships are far more complicated than a dating trend. Sometimes, we say yes when we mean no, head right while thinking left, and jump down when we want to go up. Meaning, regardless of how many rules we set up with this person, our true feelings will always come to the surface.
And that’s the point: we need to be sincere about our intentions. If we wish to be lonely during the holidays despite the social pressure, then so be it. If we feel tired of hooking-up, spending time with someone and just want to enjoy some freedom and time with ourselves, that’s fine too. And if we actually want to date someone and see where things flow along the way, then jump on it.
Family and friends have their own lives to take care off and should not intervene with whatever process, issue or romantic decision you might be dealing with.
On the other hand, if you find yourself wanting a partner’s company, someone to share some laughs with and avoid family pressure, then holidating might be the right thing for you.
1 Longman, M (2020, October 29). Will Netflix’s Holidate Inspire a messy new dating trend? Retrieved from: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10135618/what-is-holidate-meaning-dating-definition
2 Zink, H (2020, November 6). Is ‘Holidating’ an actual thing that happens? Retrieved from: https://thegrapevinegossip.com/is-holidating-an-actual-thing-that-happens/
3 Soen, H (2020, November 23). What is a ‘holidate’? The dating trend you need to get to know ASAP. Retrieved from: https://thetab.com/uk/2020/10/28/what-is-a-holidate-dating-trend-holidating-180364
4 Winch, G (2013, December 4) Surviving Loneliness over the holidays. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201312/surviving-loneliness-over-the-holidays
