Why June Is the Best Month to Have One-Night Stands, According to Science
Get out there and make it happen.
Summer really kicks into gear in June, even in places where the weather’s been warm for months. Universities let out for breaks and people go on vacation and start loosening up in general. According to research conducted by dating mega-site OkCupid, June ends up also being the month people are most likely to have a one-off hookup.
OkCupid says it’s simple number crunching—or data science, if you want to sound smart when you drop this tidbit on a date:
According to our data, there’s a 17% increase on average in people looking for one night stands in April, May and June. June is the most popular month for this trend, with 33% more people looking for a one night stand compared to the other eleven months of the year. Yup — you’re in peak season. Right now.
No, this isn’t just based on our personal increase of “u up?” texts received in the last few weeks. To get this data, we tracked over 18 million OkCupid members’ answer to the question “About how long do you want your next relationship to last?” by month from 2013 to 2016.
Members had answer options ranging from “one night” through “the rest of my life.” Sure enough, the one-and-done responses could be mapped on a handy line graph.
The flip side of this phenomena reportedly comes in the winter months, when a slightly larger number of survey respondents than usual admit they’re looking for something more long-term.
OkCupid data scientist Dale Markowitz indicated that the nature of summer of itself has a lot to do with the uptick in people being fine with this kind of casual sex. “More students, vacationers, interns and other travelers join OkCupid during” the summer months, Markowitz says, and because “these members are not necessarily tied to the place where they’re dating, maybe they are less likely to look for a serious commitment.”
While “Hey, it’s June, this is what people do” will not work as a pickup line at all, at least when you’re sitting around in the fall and remembering all the fun you had in the summer, you’ll know that you were just doing what comes naturally.
h/t OkCupid
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