Summer romance

I’m a bit of an idealist and have a tendency to over-romanticise love. Well, not just love, more ‘encounters’. I get so emotionally involved with everything I do that sometimes I’m surprised I can function. Even telemarketers are people too, and though I really don’t want their services and feel slightly miffed that they called me during that reality TV show I'm addicted to, my heart breaks a little when they hang up on me.

So here is the story of my summer of love.

It was the summer of 2005-2006. He was in Canberra for the summer for some genius scholarship thing and I was in Canberra because I live here. Now most of our time spent together was just hanging out in his room, but because I decided it was a ‘summer romance’, in my head it was playing out entirely differently:

He was a foreign business man from some exotic far away country and I was young betrothed woman enjoying my last summer before being forced into an arranged marriage.

(He was a student from Perth whose last name could also be used as a first name. I was just on school holidays in my home town and happened to be single.)

We would run on the beach and hold hands and gaze into each other’s eyes as the ocean waves enveloped us, but the only thing that mattered would be us in that moment. Our clothes will be ruined, but our love eternal. We knew my family would not approve but our love was so deep - deeper than that very ocean - and we knew nothing would ever separate us.

(We would hang out in his room. There are no beaches in Canberra.)

The balmy night sky was a canopy that retained our radiating love. The stars gazed down on us, perhaps making wishes on our shining moment in time. Nothing except cruel fate and distance could separate us. Did our love know bounds? I cared not to know, and he knew not to care.

As the sun was setting on our last day together, we gazed ahead, reflecting on the intrinsic symbolism of sunsets. Even though we were aware that our time together would be short lived, that moment would bond us for all eternity.

(We’re now facebook friends.)

And that was my summer of one sided love. I remember that summer quite fondly, even though I made a lot of it up. I have a bit of a soft spot for the guy, I think he knew I was over romanticising every interaction we had, but he kept quiet about it. He’s actually quite a top bloke.

It’s kind of fun being a secret romantic though. I like getting excited about seeing someone, choosing what to wear, not wearing the same shoes twice because you need him to know you have more than one pair of shoes, buying new perfume and wearing it once so you both know you can smell nice.
These things are important.