We can hardly let the summer go by without thoughts of those traditional events like the summer romance. Songs have been written about it, poets have lauded it, and young men and women have dreamt about it.
And there is something about the beach that lends itself to hand holding, sharing intimate moments and that age-old cry, “Run for your life,” upon waking up next to an unknown someone after a night on the town.
The problem today, though, is that no one really knows what romance is anymore, since the coronavirus has restricted all the obvious definitions displayed in the past. You know, couples strolling arm in arm, a quick peck on the cheek and sharing food off each other’s plates. And that’s just amongst the canine community.
I suppose romance changed when the personal ads came out years ago and started the movement to really put it out there in terms of what the ideal date would entail. No longer were we willing to settle for the blind date. We became the age of all or nothing. Romance is flexible.
As an example, “Single male seeks any female who can bake, likes Road & Track magazine, must be able to do 20 loads of wash a day and stirs up a mean tuna noodle casserole. I am currently pursuing a legal career specializing in appeals.”
Then we took a giant leap from personals to Internet dating apps. You really don’t have to meet anyone at the beach and get all sandy. But here again, people ran into problems. In filling out the profiles for online dating services, it became obvious that a great many candidates couldn’t pass a lie detector test if it was administered by their own mother.
And you can forget about a recent picture. Unless you were into high school yearbook poses from the 1950s, you would have to photoshop or at least airbrush all kinds of stuff onto the image, little things like a head of hair, and a set of teeth and gums that looked like they weren’t bought at the local variety store. So once again, we were faced with the definition of romance and how to get there safely today.
Now some observers will tell you that the summer romance almost always involves the popular happy hour at the local bar.
Unfortunately, the chance you take is that guys in bars suffer from short-term memory loss the next day. It’s scientifically explained that after downing a case of beer, the brain resembles most of the shredded documents left by a hurried politician called in for a Senate hearing.
It’s true that guys are often seen leaving the bar with their new love interest, a coat rack or part of an air conditioner, mistakenly believed to be a woman, just too shy to talk a lot, but that’s all pretty harmless and chalked up to a lesson learned.
Romance in bars year ago was more accurate and predictable. Guys told you they were airline pilots, bought you a bunch of drinks with little umbrellas and then went into a complete catatonic state. Women were either pretend stewardesses or actresses. The truth was that most of those singles lived with their parents and could be found at the nearest bowling alley on a Saturday night alone.
The summer romance is still ripe around here, though. You just might have to find it from six feet away and behind a mask.
Perhaps the old song by Patti Page, singing of sand dunes and salty air, will just have to bring back those memories of summer romance. Never mind, you don’t want to know what’s behind those masks, now that I think about it. Safe sailing, anyway.
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Nancy Katz has a degree in creative writing and is the author of the book, "Notes from the Beach." She has written the column Around Town for the Cape Gazette for twenty years. Her style is satirical and deals with all aspects of living in a resort area on Delmarva.
