When the weather gets nice, all a dude needs is some brews, somewhere to hang out with his friends and a steady girl to fulfill all his sexual desires.
However, the reality most bros come to accept over the years is that life is more often complicated than it is simple.
The standard summer complication arises when that steady girl you’ve been getting with begins looking for something more than just a shared, mutual release.
We’ve all been in this situation at least once before — hook up with a chick at a concert or at a party or wherever and that one hook up quickly escalates into a string of rendezvous that suddenly you can’t control.
Next thing you know, its July and the girl you’ve been casually getting with for the past six weeks wants to push things forward and that’s when the word “label” comes out and you need to either find an exit strategy or come to the realization your penis has trapped you in the ultimate Catch-22.
To paraphrase the famous Pringles ad said: once you pop, you are hopeless to stop.
Before shit gets to this point, the best strategy to implore is to set a five-time limitation on the hook up count (more on this later). Restraint may not be an applicable summertime medicine, when all the mind and body want to do is rest and relax; however, it does serve a purpose if you want to avoid the stress of female drama.
Now, if you’re in a completely free and fun summer relationship where you and your bang-buddy agreed to casually sign off on any feelings in the terms and conditions of your sex lease, then you’ve hit the summer lottery and don’t need to read much more.
On the other hand, if you’re desperate to know how to know to avoid getting in a serious summer relationship, than please read the eight keys to success below:
1. Set Limits
As already stated, a general rule of thumb is no more than five times. Anything more than that, you are settling in and getting comfortable and that’s when you don’t even realize you’ve sold off your natural right to escape at any point and are headed on an inevitable path that ends with one of the two involved parties developing feelings. Crazy fighting will ensue. Drama will ruin AT LEAST three would-be party nights. And you will end up wishing you had cut yourself off.
2. Avoid Romantic Settings
Another rule of thumb is to not bring her anywhere the idea of dating can form. This means no movies, no walks in the park and no dinners. All three of those places complicate things and come with strings attached that you won’t be able to just cut effortlessly with a scissor. You want to keep hooking up strictly to parties, concerts, bars, or any bodies of water.
Side note: let her buy her own alcohol. This isn’t going to last, so why waste the capital?
3. Keep Your Cool
Whatever you do remember what Sublime said: summertime and the livin’s easy. Act as if you were The Dude. Be as calm and as mellow as possible. Not only will that attract girls your way, it will keep the one your with from driving you insane. There’s no need to argue or debate with this chick over anything. You’re not in a philosophy class; you’re just fucking to pass the summer months.
4. Stay Available
You don’t take your eyes off the ball when you’re swinging a baseball bat, so why would you dare to look away from the market when you’re single and its summer. In fact, this isn’t even necessarily summer-specific — when you’re single keep yourself available for any new possibilities. You never know what will come next.
5. Limited Friend Interaction
This one’s incredibly valuable to keeping a distance and maintaining a level of playfulness. The less she knows about your friends and the less you know about hers, the less complex things will be and the more time you will have to concentrate on the importing things in life. In general, you don’t want to spend much time getting “involved” in personal stuff that doesn’t concern you whatsoever.
6. Dress Down
A good way to show you’re not taking your summer fling too serious is the way you dress. The more basketball jerseys and flip-flops, the better. And if that turns her on, then isn’t that still a win-win? Regardless, the more you dress down and the longer you do so, she’ll eventually catch on to the idea you’re not trying to impress her and don’t really care what she thinks of you.
7. The “Friend” Tag
It’s summer, so chances are the chick your stuffing will come across your family, friends and whoever else you meet along the way. Always make sure to introduce her by name only or, even better, as your “friend.” Any other label will complicate things and could turn a good situation into a catastrophic one.
8. Set Rules Beforehand
I couldn’t decide if I wanted this at the top or the bottom of my list. I saved it for last for a good reason — so it’s the freshest and stays in your mind the longer. The only way to have a stable, sane and successful summer fling is to set the rules before you get involved. Now, I know setting rules sounds like it’s the first step to getting you in a serious and complicated relationship, but on the contrary, these rules are set so you can always refer to them when you can feel tension building or when you want to end it.
The rules should definitely be agreed upon and should cater to both parties. This is a transaction — a handshake between business partners, if you want to drain all romance from the situation — and fairness and equality should still be preserved. This isn’t about who’s getting the better side of the deal because it’s not a competition — it’s the complete opposite; it’s sex in the summertime. It’s as natural as anything else on this planet. Why try to ruin something that supposed to be only joyous? The rules are not set to confine you, rather, paradoxically, they are meant to set you free.
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