From Sizzle to Fizzle

If Steve and I had met at any other time of year, we might not have looked twice at each other. But we met in the summer, in a graduate program for English teachers that was more like an idyllic retreat than a means for professionals to beef up their resumes. Between the remote campus and the steamy weather, falling in love was practically a curricular requirement. I met Steve in a poetry seminar on a Thursday morning. By Saturday night, we were inseparable.

There’s nothing quite like summer for facilitating romance. Moods get lighter as the days get milder, and dating follows suit. Instead of the awkward formality of winter dates – those stilted conversations spread over three-course meals and determined marches past the MFA’s masterpieces – you can make an evening out of just strolling or lying in the grass. When you hold hands, there’s no Gore-Tex to get in the way. And if romance in the summer is good, romance on an isolated Vermont mountain in the summer is better. Steve and I had 15 hours of daylight, lots of unscheduled time, and a thousand acres of woods before us. For three weeks, we were googly-eyed and blissful. We stole kisses between classes, between meals, between Shakespeare sonnets.

But summer’s lease hath all too short a date – in summer school as well as in “Sonnet 18.” A week before the end of classes, I made a comment about the distance between New Jersey, where he lived, and my home in Boston. Steve frowned. Why, he asked, was I suddenly getting so serious? Why worry about the future when we had another week left in paradise? I could feel the chilling effect of my words. So in all my 22-year-old wisdom, I decided that the really smart thing to do would be to mask my true feelings and just enjoy the last week with Steve. I would try – very, very hard – to be a carefree summer sprite.

Needless to say, it didn’t work. I grew resentful. Steve grew puzzled. I got mad because he wasn’t reading my mind, and he got irritated because I wouldn’t tell him what was on my mind. We had an enormous fight over something stupid and parted ways abruptly. Within 48 hours, Steve had a new very-end-of-summer love.

For some time afterward, I considered the whole concept of a “summer romance” to be nothing more than an excuse for the shallow and insincere among us (i.e. Steve) to absolve themselves of all responsibility for the feelings of the honest and loyal (i.e. moi). Once back in my autumn routine, I got over Steve, embarked on a more enduring relationship, and generally chalked up the experience to the intoxicating effects of sunshine. In the future, I decided, I’d beware the dangers of too much vitamin D.

But it turned out that Steve hadn’t absolved himself at all. Four years later, and long after the sting had worn off, he wrote to me quite out of the blue. He wanted, he said, to apologize for the way things between us had ended. He felt particularly bad about the other-woman-after-just-48-hours business. He wanted me to know he’d spent the intervening years trying to be more considerate in his relationships. Then he wished me well.

All summer romances must end, whether by dying a natural death or imploding in anticipation of the first autumn chill. Even the flings that outlast Labor Day end in their own way as they morph into four-season relationships. Perhaps it’s that knowledge that makes so many of us look back on summer loves more fondly than on other short-term relationships. With summer romances, we know all along that the feverish feeling will not last forever, any more than the fresh strawberries will. So once the relationship becomes nothing more than a memory, the ending – painful or not – no longer seems like the most important part.

I have no idea what events in his own life made Steve write me when he did, but it remains one of the nicest notes I’ve ever received. It was lovely precisely because it was so unexpected, so surprising, so no-strings-attached – sort of like a summer fling.

Alison Lobron lives in Concord. E-mail comments to coupling@globe.com.