Monday, July 6, 1998
Love melts under summer heat when partners decide to cheat
RELATIONSHIPS: Long distances between lovers kindle affairs that
could damage self-esteemBy Michael Yan
Summer is here, and all the guys and girls are wearing less and
looking better in the hot sun that this time of the year brings. In
fact, this season signifies the beginning of something that has
happened since the invention of the summer camp and vacations to
remote places that are far away from home. What I’m talking about
is the summer fling, a subject which I’ve contemplated much during
my previous summers. Yes, that ugly two-word phrase that a couple
in a relationship dreads to hear because it stinks of betrayal and
heartbreak.
I speak from personal experience on this subject and have
encountered many summer-fling stories during my span on this
planet. Oddly, I’ve lost two girlfriends to teachers in summer
flings. No, I’m not entirely unattractive, and my personality is
better than a wall slug, so I guess I just pick easily tempted
girls (maybe).
This is going to be one of those compendiums where you’ll say,
"Oh my God, what an idiot!" The truth is that I was an idiot in
each of my relationships, and my friends were idiots in theirs.
Thankfully, these will be events that have happened to my friends
and myself, so you will not have to suffer in emotional anguish the
way we did. If you have suffered through this, then please take my
condolences, and when I say, "I know how you feel," you can be
reassured that I truly do.
First and foremost, let me start with my friend’s example
because it is more typical. John went to summer camp a few years
ago, and found he enjoyed the atmosphere very much. He wrote to his
girlfriend daily about what he did and happily went about his
business until Jen showed up. Since his girlfriend lived so far
away, he decided a small summer fling would be harmless. He stopped
writing to his girlfriend because he was too busy using his free
time roaming in the forest with Jen where they did some very
private things. It is sufficient to say the girlfriend grew
suspicious. When he arrived home, the fling was apparent, for
unfortunately Jen was a person whom the girlfriend knew because
they went to the same church. Ouch! The irony still stings. One
relationship bites the dust.
I never went to summer camp or summer school. I do go on
vacations, but unlike "The Wonder Years," I don’t find myself
meeting a great gal near a fishing hole on a family trip. Instead,
I’m the fool who calls back his girlfriend on a payphone, tells her
how much he loves her and then notices that it is an answering
machine. Gee, it is awfully late for her to be out. Apparently,
during her classes at a high school in the Los Angeles area, she
had met a really great guy. He had lots of money and he treated her
right, and I later discovered that he had been quite "intimate"
with her. She also had another affair with my other friend right
under my nose during that summer. Finally, when we returned to
different schools that fall, she had apparently upgraded the age
quantity of her boyfriends as she started dating a teacher. Since
she was a minor, the affair cost him his job. I hear they’re happy
together, so I’m happy for them. But for the one left behind, a
second relationship sucks on dirt.
The trend only continues in my life. I was happy to have a
girlfriend again who (I assumed) was very loyal. In fact, she had a
sweet disposition and kindness that she spread abundantly.
Unfortunately, like Everclear’s song "Everything to Everyone," she
tried to please everybody around her. She was remarkably friendly
with my professor, but it didn’t matter because she was committed
to me. Three weeks away from orientation, I hadn’t spent time with
my girlfriend of one year in about one month because she was busy
with some "cultural events." In all actuality, my girlfriend was
dating the professor, and I was being deceived.
When my girlfriend decided to go to Europe with her best friend,
it took a little investigation and heavy interrogation to discover
that her "best friend" was one of my professors. I need not ask you
to imagine what two people could possibly do together in a fabulous
one-month trip to Europe when living in the same room. I rest my
case. My UCLA orientation was filled with summer-fling reflection
that has culminated in the nifty article you now hold in your
hands. Three relationships down the drain with a hearty flush.
Now that you have the cases presented before you, I pass on to
you the reasons why summer flings are bad. Since I’ve been a
victim, I can describe lessons that can be learned by a person who
starts a fling. I can tell you that it hurts deeply when someone
you trust completely stomps all over your heart. If you don’t
really want to be with a person, then don’t commit to him or her. I
have no problems with people being promiscuous, as long as all the
participants are aware of it. Just reflect on if you are thinking
about how cute the person sitting two seats down looks compared to
your significant other.
If you must move on, please just tell your other half. It hurt
me more that my girlfriends hid their affairs. The betrayal hurt
because it told me that either I wasn’t important enough in this
person’s eyes to at least have a fair warning or the whole
relationship meant very little. In addition, hiding the truth leads
to a time period of anguish for the victim, who ponders what the
other is possibly doing behind the victim’s back.
Moreover, the deadly result from betrayal is my sudden loss of
trust for anybody. After all, it is difficult to trust someone if
you don’t trust anyone. Cheaters should learn that you just don’t
get away with it. If eyewitnesses can’t be found, for women there’s
intuition and for guys there are those sudden instances where your
girlfriend isn’t home anymore to answer your telephone calls.
Remember that no criminal gets away with his or her crime every
time!
I still don’t trust many people, and that has hindered me from
making friends at UCLA. John has a girlfriend who suspects that
he’ll leave her any time now because of his past. So those of you
thinking about the fling, I hope you’ve gotten something out of
this.
The only thing I could say to victims about the flings that
summer brings is that you just have to have faith when you commit
to someone. I haven’t been able to develop that capacity all the
way, but I’m improving.
It’s up to you, the tempted, to think carefully of your actions.
As with many things in life, you can’t go back and change what is
in the past, and the marks you leave on others in this intricate
web of relationships is a permanent one.
Just to reiterate for those of you who like to read the endings
to novels first, don’t enter into summer flings unless you’re out
to hurt a lot of people for some lustful fun in the sun. If you are
out to hurt a lot of people, at least warn them.Yan is a
second-year mathematics of computation student. E-mail him at
meyan@ucla.edu or, if you catch him on campus, he promises to look
confused and have a really bad, unprepared response for you.