By Lucia V. Smith
Every year, exhausted college students, overworked employees, feisty bachelorettes, and recent divorcees swarm to the warmest spots in the spring to catch a break from tireless routines. They end up on cruises and warm beaches, the unflattering scantily clad, the beauties pushily covered, the carefree chilling. The sight of people strutting their stuff across the beach always seems to amaze me; nature’s beautiful white isles become fashion runways, some nude for attention, others allowing their golden Michael Kors watches to gleam with as their dials catch the rays of the sunshine.
And then there’s the men. All the beautiful men.
Cut-off cargoes and tops aside, there’s no better place to scope out hot bodies than the beach. The XY chromosomes are in full effect, each male competing for ladies interests by baring their chest hairs for all to see. And there are so many. Lying on the beach during spring break is ironically like being in a shaken snow globe with all those white flurries floating down around you.
It rains men. Hallelujah.
But those spring vacations are simply points in time, no promises can be made, no extensions or dreams of baby carriages necessary. The men you meet on these temporary moments of exploration are unlike the ones we dream about seeing on getaways or the guys that the hot chicks catch in the movies. These guys just want to hit. H-I-T. Maybe buy you something off the value menu from Burger King. But nothing more.
Men flock to the places where there will be an overabundance of visible skin and easy access. I hate to crush on other girls, but because there are enough of us out there that are willing to have a “fun”, we good girls get stuck with confused signals and limp hearts after meeting cute guys on the beach that only want to “hang out”. We get preyed on, observed by predating men whose only goal is to see how many girls they can get it in with while they are away from their homebody girlfriends. They come, rubbers stacked, Sam’s Club edition, with a game plan in place and the delete button memorized for how they plan to erase you from their mind after they’ve accomplished their task.
Unfortunately, I don’t do one-night stands. Nor do I do one-night sits.
It’s tough being a hopeless romantic. We’re constantly waiting for that scene in our lives where we get rescued by the Clark Kent or when Idris Elba is going to surprise us and whisk us off our feet. I often think that single ladies arrive on spring break with conflicted intentions. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a girl who just wants to enjoy being single and have a good time as long as she protects herself. But there’s some of us who check our romantic desires along with our baggage and have it follow us along with us to our spring break destinations. We hope that Prince Charming is going to walk up out of the shadows, rise out of the sea and single us out from the hundreds of other girls on the beach. Sitting. Waiting. Hoping. Wishing.
I think it’s time that we stop having flings with that imaginary Mr. Right during vacays. Holding onto that idea of meeting a good guy during spring break is damaging to some degree because it distracts us from the main reason why we sneak away from our homes in the first place: to relax. How can we be relaxed if we’re constantly worrying about whether or not a guy is checking us out because he wants to marry us or because he wants to get it in? Yes, spring vacations are meant for having fun, for freeing oneself from the shackles of whatever is holding us back. It’s a time to let go from that imaginary Prince Charming’s strong hold and grasp onto the carefree aspect of life that is being on vacation. You don’t have to h-i-t some rando you met on the street or down 8th & Ocean. But allowing yourself to breathe and truly be without scheduling “get a man” into your vacay plans will make you all the more mentally relaxed.
And you never know. He might show up. But you won’t see him if your still romantically involved with the imaginary idea of a man that you’ve never met.
