Summer romances are something that almost everyone has experienced but can it really set the foundations of a long-lasting love as Noah and Allie would like you to think in the film The Notebook (just thinking about it brings a tear to the eye)?
From personal experience which involved a month long summer romance at the tender age of 14 during which the object of my affection was away in America for three weeks of our time together, it’s hard to believe so.
I would go as far as to say that summer romance is named as such for a very good reason. From the outset, and as the name states, these ‘flings’ are only meant to last during the summer and thus must be destined to end with bittersweet goodbyes.
The premise upon which you meet and start seeing each other is, from the outset, completely flawed. Chances are if you were at home you wouldn’t even bother talking to the guy never mind doing anything else. Because you’re on holiday, it seems like a good idea and your feelings are intensified thereby there is the illusion of falling in love.
With the sun, the sea and all the rest of it, summer romance is an ideal which I think is better left in the country and brief time period in which it was found to avoid further complication and heartache.
Most likely, when life returns to normal, work and distance among many others things will inevitably get in the way. There’s also the very likely possibility that you find you weren’t anywhere near as compatible as you first thought and your families would most likely hate each other.
Also there’s the fact that you’ve only known each other for like two seconds and have no real clue as to what sort of person they really are. That sort of understanding takes years. I just don’t think it’s possible to get to know someone in the space of a few weeks or months, never mind fall in love with them.
I’ll admit there are exceptions out there. In fact my best friend’s mum met her dad on holiday when she was 17. Twenty-three years and two kids later, they’re still happily married. While this is very much a case of summer romance turning into something more, it was a matter of years before they decided to take what they had to the ‘relationship’ level.
Despite this rare and wonderful example, I don’t think that modern summer romances are meant to last. Maybe once upon a time they had the potential to, but not anymore. Now, there’s also an increased chance of being used for money or transmitting a sexually-transmitted disease. And those are the tame risks!
So with the pressures of modern life and the flawed foundations upon which summer romances stand, they are inevitably doomed. As two summer romancers, who go by the names of Danny and Sandy, once said, ‘Summer Dreams ripped at the seams…’
