Summer love is usually not planned. It simply happens. There is just something about summer that allows for things to move a little slower, to be a little more free. When there is no pressure of school, no tight schedules or deadlines, students have the time and space to interact and just “be” together. This is where relationships can come more naturally, often much faster than students expect.
The relationships experienced in summer feel different than those occurring during the school year. There is more freedom and less pressure. Conversations can go on longer and plans can be more casual. Even simple things such as walking together or talking late at night are perceived as more meaningful when nothing else is on their mind.
Yet this same freedom contributes to a lack of certainty. Relationships in summer occur in a transient environment. A place without the daily routines and close contact of the school year. There is an unspoken, underlying belief that things could change at the end of summer when students return to their previous routines and the “real world.”
This is what makes summer love so complex. On one hand, the nature of summer love is exciting because everything feels natural and people seem more willing to open up more than at any other time of the year, but this can also lead to an insecurity about whether it will be sustained during the school year.
Not all relationships that begin in the summer are meant to last and some eventually drift apart as people adjust to their school year schedules.
While many relationships may be brief, they may not always end this way. Many relationships start in the summer and continue to grow into the school year. Even those that end before the school year are meaningful.
Teens find someone that makes them feel less alone and then continue to spend the remainder of the summer with them, whether their relationship continues into the school year or not.
Summer love is not about the length of time, it is more about the moment and how it made you feel.
