• "I don't believe in the current marriage; I do not acquire the commitment with another, but with myself." Why weddings fall and fall in Spain
  • This is how it is linked (in person) in 2022
  • Finding a partner at age 30. The age of demand

Sandy and Danny already sang it in 'Grease'... "Summer love made me explode / Summer love passed so fast / I met a girl, she was crazy about me / I met a boy, I couldn't be more cute / Summer days, oh, those summer nights." When the friends of both ask them "tell me more, tell me more", the truth is that there is not much more to tell, due to the short duration of the affair, a constant, on the other hand, of summer loves. Another thing is its intensity. There we can recreate ourselves in the details.

Because yes, there are still summer loves in the 'Summer Nights', despite this world of likes, posts, matches and other words that are stealing our mental health. Only, in most cases, they last even less than a summer. Jorge (35) told me about it yesterday from Italy, one of the stops on his trip with Interrail. He had just a few hours left there before traveling to his next destination, but decided to open Grindr to see if he could spend that time with someone interesting: "It's been the most fleeting summer love I've ever had, three and a half wonderful hours. We have met in a park, we have talked about summer loves and a lot of interesting things. He has taken me to a very cool bar and there we have messed up in the bathroom. I had to go to catch the bus, so he accompanied me and I told him that I wanted an epic-romantic farewell as a fleeting summer good love, so he stayed saying goodbye to me from the platform. "

How hot and what do you want (you) I have

And that's it, finite. You already have emotional intensity for the rest of the week. There is no need to give more explanations or details, until the next one, of course. Marina (30), who lives in southern Spain, sees it as well. The weather and being in a summer resort make many more people pass through there, and with 'expiration date' assured: "I am very given to this type of relationship because I do not like commitment at all and they usually happen with people from other cities, so I make sure that it will not continue forward. When they come here there are many summer plans: the beach, the pool, the beach bar... The atmosphere is more conducive at this time of year, in winter it is much more depressing, no point of comparison."

The story acquires a higher level -yes, it is possible- in the summer camps, where we not only play with the summer vacation factor, but with a space and hyperdefined times: a week surfing in a resort in Cantabria, five days of yoga in a campsite in Almeria or 15 days with unknown backpackers in Costa Rica. "It's the bubble effect, during that specific time that's your life and nothing else exists, you play with everything to the fullest. And there's something beautiful about that, because you know it's going to be perfect and it becomes a memory that you can always come back to," Jorge reiterates.

Expiration date like yogurts

The heat, the plans, even wearing less clothes: from June, all our pheromones are prepared to live with the highest possible level of intensity our particular 'Summer Night'. But it is autumn and we began to shed our skin like reptiles, knowing that such intense love came with an expiration date. What happens to us when the cold comes? Susana Ivorra, psychologist, sexologist and couples therapist, brings us some light: "Summer brings, in addition to better weather, which makes us happier and we are more open, more plans, and that translates into better opportunities to meet people. My patients tell me when they become single in summer that it is a good time to meet new people, so we do have the season associated with new loves. Winter, on the other hand, is a time of routines, of work, where we do not have so many vacations and we enter that hamster wheel in which you are tired and what you want is to stay, at most, with your people. "

Infinite summer loves

So the problem is our rhythms? Because the truth is that we talk about this time of year, but there are profiles that live in a constant liquid love with a guaranteed end date. "This has to do in part with economic, labor and social precariousness. When you are overwhelmed and exhausted, you hardly have time and what you want is not to have to manage anything complicated. And simple relationships are not, but rather the opposite: adapting to another person, managing conflicts... That's why we run away and everything tends to be superficial and liquid," explains Ivorra.

Let's take another real example: Inés meets Sergio -fictitious names- last summer at a festival in Madrid. He was just passing through, because he lives in Barcelona, where he also maintains an open relationship. That night Sergio and Inés go to bed, there is a lot of chemistry, and they continue to talk more and more during the following months. For work reasons, Inés begins to travel once a month to Barcelona for five months, in which the moment of the meeting of a few hours with Sergio in his city becomes his particular 'Summer Night'. That is only sustained during those moments, since they do not continue talking until the imminent and subsequent appointment of the following month, where it seems that everything resumes where it left off the previous time and becomes interesting, fun, stimulating and sexually explosive again. A time bomb about to explode all the time.

Inés and Sergio do not talk openly about what kind of relationship they are maintaining or where they are going, but the conversations they have imply that he does not want to leave his previous relationship nor does she want to get into that 'fregao'. And there's what Ivorra calls "the first bobbin lace." "Everything can be very nice until it stops being nice, that first 'who adapts to whom', if this is my business or the other has to work on it. If you live it from the most superficial and you want to stay in that excitement of the first moments, this relationship ends and another one begins, and so you can have simpler relationships, but of shorter duration. We do not want to manage anyone's emotions, our own or others, we come from years of enduring just because, and we have gone to the other extreme. "

Our friend Marina points out in this sense that the best thing is communication, that is, making clear from the beginning what you are looking for: "I make it clear that I do not want anything serious beyond having a fun time".

Farewell and mourning

Sandy and Danny also sang it to us: It got colder / That's where it ended / So I told him we'd still be friends / We made our true oath of love / I wonder what he's doing now / Summer dreams broken at the seams / But oh, oh, those summer nights.

It ends and you think it has been incredible, but you are left with a trace of melancholy that sometimes is not comparable to the time you have spent with that person. And contrary to what you may think, it is totally normal, since it has more to do with the levels of intensity, as Susana Ivorra confirms: "It gives you the feeling that it has not been real, but of course it has been true, although a very fragile truth. There are people who grieve worse because of the breakup of a three-month relationship than they do for a 10-year relationship." It is possible, in 10 years you have had time to fall out of love, and what remains is couple love, but the hormonal high that you have been able to live in three months is not comparable. That leaves you with an emptiness and a pain that does not correspond to the duration, but to the intensity."

In any case, nothing is better or worse, anything goes. Sandy and Danny already proved it to us 45 years ago. That's why, on Tinder, at the bar, on the beach, at the village festival, in summer or winter, you have to keep daring.