Key findings
- 66% of members who admit to an affair say they have used a summer social event as cover for it. The site calls it ‘alibi season’.
- The hen or stag do is the most trusted excuse at 41%, ahead of the girls’ or lads’ holiday (28%), the wedding (19%) and the festival (12%).
- Only 4% say a cover story has ever been questioned by their partner.
- Activity is forecast to run 46% above an average August weekend across the bank holiday.
- The results come from a poll of 2,000 members by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading extramarital dating site, and the site’s own registration data.
This is the last bank holiday until Christmas, and the country will spend it at weddings, hen dos and barbecues – which, according to new research, is exactly what makes it the most useful weekend of the year for anybody conducting an affair. The diary does the work.
IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading extramarital dating site, polled 2,000 members and found that two-thirds of those who admit to an affair – 66% – have used a summer social event as the cover story for it. The site calls the stretch from June to September alibi season, and reckons this weekend is its peak.
The hen or stag do is the most trusted excuse by some distance, named by 41%. Then the girls’ or lads’ holiday on 28%, the wedding on 19% and the festival on 12%. These are events that run late, usually involve a night away, and where nobody expects a reply for hours.
It works, too. Members say they lean on about three such events across a single summer and stay out of contact for roughly seven hours at a time – and only 4% have ever had a cover story questioned by the person they live with.
Women were more likely than men to have used a social event this way, at 71% against 58%, and they lean on the hen do and the girls’ holiday – men reach for the golf, the football, or a work thing that overran.
The site’s own figures point the same way. Activity is forecast to run 46% above an average August weekend across the bank holiday, with the sharpest rises in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool.
Friday evening is the busiest window of the three days.
Nicola*, 39, from Stockport, has three weddings this summer. “I have got a hen do in September that I am not even going to,” she says. “It is in the calendar, my husband knows about it, and that is a Saturday night accounted for. I did not plan it that way. I just noticed one year that nobody ever asks.”
Jessica Leoni, sex and relationships expert for IllicitEncounters.com, said: “The August bank holiday is the one weekend of the year when nobody has to explain themselves. There is a wedding, a hen do, somebody’s barbecue. If you are out all night with your phone off, you are only where everybody else is.”
She added: “I have worked here through twenty-odd August bank holidays and the pattern does not change. What people book is not the affair, it is the alibi. And come Tuesday, when the diary empties out and there is nothing left to hide behind until Christmas, that is when we hear from the ones who got caught.”
Results
Top summer ‘cover stories’ for an affair (of those who admit to an affair; respondents could select more than one)
| Summer ‘cover story’ | % who have used it |
| Hen or stag do | 41% |
| ‘Girls’ or lads’ holiday | 28% |
| Wedding | 19% |
| Festival | 12% |
| Summer work social or after-work drinks | 11% |
| Golf or football with friends | 9% |
| Visiting family or helping a friend | 7% |
*Name has been changed.
About Illicit Encounters
IllicitEncounters.com is the UK’s largest and longest-running extramarital dating site, established in 2004. The site has over one million UK members and publishes regular research on modern infidelity and relationships in Britain, with expert commentary from sex and relationships expert Jessica Leoni.
Press contact: [email protected]
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