Why we still believe in the summer love story: On golden light, open hearts, and the myth that keeps being proven true

Every summer, a small stubborn hope arrives for a life-changing romance, a new version of yourself you haven’t met yet. Even with sensible expectations and a tight schedule, the feeling comes right around the time the days stay light past 8 p.m. 

Culture has been feeding us this myth for a century, and it hasn’t gotten old. Maybe it is Audrey Hepburn stealing one day of freedom through the streets of Rome, or Gatsby’s green light across the water. Maybe it’s Sandy and Danny on the carnival ride, singing about summer nights. And sometimes the love survives beyond the summer season, but the story is still good even when it doesn’t, because the characters become more themselves for it. 

Let’s not forget, Audrey first had to decide to let loose from the tight routine that comes with being a princess, to later be taken on the ultimate Roman Holiday. 

Regardless of how these whirlwind romances ignite and no matter where in the globe you are, we keep returning to the long and hazy summers of film and literature. There’s likely many reasons, but mostly we return because there is something universally true in these summer love stories. Despite their classification in the fiction genre, something about them rings true to us.

Removing the noise

Summer is certainly a different kind of time. Longer light loosens the routine and you suddenly start to notice things and places you walked past all winter. Summer naturally encaptures what makes us feel alive: unstructured time, sensory richness, and lowered defenses. Summer evenings are different with the golden hour before dusk, the way a conversation can run two hours without either person noticing the time, and the comfort of being outside without feeling threatened by the weather. Summer doesn’t automatically manufacture romance; instead, it removes the noise that often gets in the way of it. 

The summer love story, as sold by culture, is about the arrival of someone else: the meet-cute and the unexpected encounter. But love isn’t about the other. Your summer love story doesn’t start with a beloved; it starts with you. The real mythology behind summer romances is, at its core, about the interior transformation that occurs as an inevitable consequence of the quality of attention we finally give to our own life. Everything else follows from that — even the meet-cute —  because ultimately love is about our own capacity to open our hearts to ourselves and only then, consequently to others. 

Loving the present

Summer brings a unique joy and a focus on the present. While winter cold and spring rains often shorten our time outside of home, by the time summer arrives we are ready to embrace the new opportunities that come with it. Among those opportunities, there’s the chance to open ourselves to love without requiring a lover. The lover, if he comes, comes second. In the meantime, we occupy ourselves with the small and big joys we rediscover in ourselves. 

If one is to truly welcome summer and fully embrace everything that comes with it, an inevitable shift occurs. Maybe it’s the shock to the system when vitamin D rises or maybe it’s just the brighter colors around us. Undoubtedly, there’s a shift in perspective and disposition and this largely results in a freeing sensation that ripples into pretty much everything. Suddenly we are more adventurous, we are more open, we are more joyful, and people can sense this even without being able to name it. 

The mistake is waiting. Summer love stories don’t happen to people sitting still hoping to be found. They happen to people already in motion. The summer love is for those who said yes to the dinner invitations, those who looked up from their phones while sitting at a cafe, those who signed up for group activities. The golden light doesn’t do the work, instead it makes the work available.

If there’s a summer love story waiting for you this year (maybe even with someone you’ve loved many summers before), don’t look for it where you expect. Look for it in the spontaneity of the evenings you let run longer than planned, in the conversations you didn’t cut short, in the moment you stopped all the busyness and let yourself be somewhere without already planning the exit.

That’s all the instructions. That’s all it really is. Everything else is your own surprise and adventure.