How Not To Have A Summer Romance

Don’t go on OKCupid and search for a boy like you’re shopping for shoes. Don’t pick one that’s just above six feet tall with a cute face and a journalism degree. Don’t send him a cute two-line message asking an inane question whose true purpose is to lure him into asking you out all on his own.

When he does ask you out, don’t accept. Don’t meet him in a cute local cafe and pretend to look unfazed when he tells you he hadn’t had a drink until he was 25. Don’t pretend that you’re totally open-minded about hardcore punk, because you actually think it sounds like garbage. And don’t take him to an adorable little spot overlooking a bay with a single bench littered in sand, and don’t put your head on his shoulder until he works up the nerve to kiss you.

Don’t accept a second date, or a third, or a fourth. And on that fourth date, when you say, “When I go to Italy, I don’t know when I’ll be back,” and he says, “Do you want to see me until you go to Italy?” do not, do not say:

“Yes.”

This is how not to have a summer romance, remember.

Do not obsess about how feminine you are. How he’s never seen you without a dress on and how you refrain from fiercely groping his body when you make out because it makes you seem like you want to have sex – because you “don’t.” Not yet.

Don’t obsess about how disinterested in sex you seem to him.

Don’t sleep with him on the ninth date because nine seems like a good number and hell, if you’ve gotten this far you might as well get something good out of it.

Don’t make him give you head for a half-hour as you hopelessly try to orgasm.

Don’t let him lay on your chest in tired desperation when he gives up, don’t stroke his hair because you feel bad.

Don’t realize that maybe “something good” was not sex after all, but what you had before. On the sandy bench.

Because when you know when things are going to end, you can plan it out to a T. And all of that control and anticipation may just be your downfall.

In fact, when the summer starts, don’t go on OKCupid at all. Just sit on that bench by yourself.