I have a theory about weather.
Warm weather makes people happy and amenable to joyful things, such as sand volleyball or working on your laptop outdoors. Cold weather makes people sad and receptive to horrible suggestions, such as staying in on Friday to study or watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy.
Cold also constantly reminds single people that they are, in fact, single.
I discovered this the other day when I walked outside, considered dying as a viable alternative to enduring the cold and then remembered I was single. Something about the snow and the cold encourages one to remember the frozen, empty place in one’s heart. Please note that me being single does not mean that I am lonely, but rather that I spend a lot of time without people near me. If I were at all insecure, this could be viewed as “sad” or “pathetic” or “just like fifth grade.” As I am none of these things, I am comfortable within my impenetrable fortress of solitude.
But over break, I realized that if the cold is a reminder that you are single, warm weather happily provides you a mate. Sometimes multiple mates. Sometimes all at once. In the sand. With waves crashing over them.
Two weeks ago I was relaxing on a beach in Miami doing some light reading about the genocide in Sudan. I was midway through a sentence that was along the lines of, “The fate of the refugee camp was in danger until — ” when I saw an event often talked about, constantly dreamed of, but never actually witnessed without the aid of a SteadyCam:
Three sculpted women in sparkly g-string bikinis were rolling around on the beach, touching tongues as gawking men looked on. After a few moments of this, they stood up and ran to a well-tanned greasy man (whom I will call Greezer) and started to kiss him. Then they all took turns kissing each other. After they were done, one girl started to bury Greezer in the sand and nibble at him while the other girls were playing some unidentifiable game with a rule that involved a light spanking.
It was surreal, to say the least. Of course, the first emotion I experienced was injustice. How could a chump like Greezer get three sandy fox babes while I struggled to get one?
The answer turned out to be much simpler and sadder than I’d envisioned. A friend darted over to the scene of the crime to investigate. As Greezer and his gals were leaving the beach, my friend heard a man shout, “Hey mister, how did you do that?” To which Greezer replied, “I love the University of Miami.” Someone else shouted, “Hey mister, what else?” Greezer paused and confidently added, “Well, it helps to have a lot of money.” The quad pod started to leave. Fifteen minutes of intense tumbling later, they accidently found their way to the parking lot and left.
And the puzzle fell into place: a rich man had picked up three desperate girls from college and given them drugs and taken them to the beach. The end. There is no glorious tale of love or chance romance; no corny, pornographic plot of pirates that happen to cross paths on the sea and share love via candlesticks. It was just normal, offensively plain debauchery.
Which in the end makes me feel a little better. If I am going to be alone, I might as well do it here. Warm weather apparently encourages encounters that are sloppy and filled with ecstasy (the drug, not the Saint Teresa kind). In New Haven, the cold weather almost fosters being single because there is very little worth going outside for. Seeing a loved one means risking any liquid in your body becoming solid, so I’ll play it safe and just stay single indoors.
And yes, the loneliness might kick in when I come back to my room after a long day and the only thing to greet me is the ridiculous number of books for “Civil War and Reconstruction.” And sure, it’s not as nice when there is no one with whom to cuddle under a warm flannel blanket while watching the premiere of LOST. But that is fine with me because if I am going to be alone, it might as well be fucking miserable outside.