When you’ve just been dumped and you’re struggling to get the ex back, summer can be especially difficult. It’s the time of that fabled experience known as the summer romance. And everything, from the loving couples on the street to the tunes we’re plugged into, reinforces that image.
But word comes from England this weekend that August – hot, steamy August – actually is one of the times during the year when breakups are more likely to flourish than romances.
A greeting card seller in County Durham told The Journal Live that he’s noticed “just the same as at Christmas, summer holidays are a time when relationships can become frayed and can end….”
And get this: He thinks it’s because people have to spend more time together.
Oh, My Summer of Love.
And he’s backed up by a scholar. “It’s a common misconception that summer is the time when love blossoms and relationships thrive,” Dr. David Holmes, of Manchester Metropolitan University’s department of psychology, told the newspaper.
They say that misery loves company, but I’m not sure I find this new myth-busting bit of information very comforting. Give me a little of Dusty Springfield’s “Summer Love” any day. Or even Old Blue Eyes’ rendition of “The Things We Did Last Summer.”
What I can take consolation in, is in knowing that relationships, no matter how hopeless they may appear, can be saved. I wish I’d found this out sooner; then it wouldn’t have been such a struggle to survive that first breakup and to get the ex back.
