Nobody Actually Likes Summer

I have an unpopular opinion about summer, although I do not believe it should be unpopular because I have evidence.

Nobody actually likes summer.

I know what people are going to say. They are going to say, “I love summer!” These people are lying.

Possibly not consciously. I am willing to entertain the possibility that they have been deceiving themselves for so long that they genuinely believe they love summer. Human beings are capable of tremendous feats of self-delusion. We invented astrology, extended car warranties, low-rise jeans and the idea that kale chips are an acceptable substitute for food.

But nobody likes summer.

What people like is 80 degrees with a breeze.

This is an entirely different thing.

Eighty degrees with a breeze is lovely. Eighty degrees with a breeze is sitting on a patio with a cold drink while your hair moves gently enough to suggest that you are starring in a commercial for something expensive. It is sandals without third-degree burns, dinner outside without actively resenting the sun, and the sort of afternoon where you might voluntarily walk somewhere that is not directly between two air-conditioned buildings. Eighty degrees with a breeze is not summer. It is a weather hostage negotiation in which summer has temporarily agreed not to kill anybody.

Actual summer begins when you open the front door and the atmosphere immediately places a warm wet washcloth over your entire body. This is the season people claim to love.

According to the Journal of Recreational Meteorological Delusion, approximately 94 percent of people who say “I love hot weather” make this statement from inside an air-conditioned structure. The remaining six percent are standing in a swimming pool.

This is not liking heat.

If you liked heat, you would not spend four months constructing increasingly elaborate methods of escaping from it. Nobody says, “I absolutely adore winter,” and then immediately runs indoors, turns the furnace up to 93 degrees, straps heating pads to both thighs and spends the afternoon misting themselves with hot soup. Yet summer enthusiasts routinely tell me they “love the heat” while sitting directly under an air-conditioning vent, drinking from a cup containing seventeen pounds of ice and periodically announcing that they cannot believe how hot it is outside.

This is suspicious.

There are entire industries devoted to helping summer lovers survive the thing they allegedly love. We have central air, window units, ceiling fans, pedestal fans, desk fans, neck fans, misting fans, cooling towels, cooling pillows, cooling sheets, cooling mattress pads and tiny battery-powered devices designed to blow air directly into your face because apparently the natural atmosphere has become unacceptable. Human beings now walk around wearing personal climate-control equipment and continue insisting that the climate itself is wonderful.

According to a landmark study published by the International Institute for People Who Need to Admit They’re Hot, researchers approached 600 self-described “summer people” on a 103-degree afternoon and offered to turn off their air conditioning.

There were no survivors.

Summer people will also tell you that summer is wonderful because you can “go to the beach,” which is not evidence that summer is pleasant. The beach is a place humans invented specifically because summer is trying to cook us. We walk to the edge of an enormous body of cold water and repeatedly immerse ourselves in it while drinking refrigerated liquids under portable fabric shelters. This is not an expression of affection for heat. This is emergency thermoregulation with snacks.

Swimming pools are even more incriminating. If you genuinely love 100-degree weather, why are you submerged up to your neck in chemically treated water? Come out and enjoy your beloved heat. Stand on the concrete for a while. Really commune with it. No? You’d rather stay in the pool? Interesting.

Summer enthusiasts will now become defensive and say, “Well, I like being able to wear shorts,” which is not liking summer. That is liking shorts. You may wear shorts whenever you want. There are no federal regulations governing this. The Department of Pants does not dispatch agents to your house in February. Similarly, liking barbecues does not mean you like oppressive heat. Humans can cook meat outdoors in April. We possess calendars.

But the greatest evidence against the alleged summer lover arrives every year around September, when the temperature finally drops below 80 degrees and these exact same people lose their minds over “sweater weather.”

Excuse me?

You have spent the previous three months telling me that you LOVE summer. You posted pictures of thermometers reading 101 degrees with cheerful little sun emojis. You wrote “FINALLY!” when June arrived. You told everyone complaining about the heat that they should “enjoy it while it lasts.” It has lasted. It has lasted so long that the steering wheel now requires protective equipment.

Then the temperature reaches 72 degrees and suddenly you are sprinting toward Starbucks in a cardigan shouting about pumpkin spice.

You do not like summer, Becky.

You like pleasant weather.

So do I.

We have discovered common ground.

So here is my proposal for anyone who still insists they love hot weather.

When the temperature reaches 105 degrees, turn off the air conditioner. Put away the fan. No pool. No cold drinks. No cooling towels. No shade umbrella. No spraying yourself with water like supermarket produce. Sit outside and enjoy the weather you claim to love.

I will check on you in twenty minutes.

Actually, I will check on you in four.

I predict that by then we will have discovered that what you actually love is sunshine, vacations, swimming, flowers, barbecues, sandals, long evenings, cold drinks and the ability to leave the house without carrying a coat. These are all perfectly reasonable things to enjoy. Not one of them requires the air itself to be 104 degrees.

What you love is 80 degrees with a breeze.

There is no shame in admitting any of this. We can stop pretending. We can retire the phrase “I love the heat” and replace it with something more accurate, such as, “I enjoy warm pleasant weather provided civilization continues operating normally.” And the next time somebody announces that they “love summer” while lowering the thermostat, standing in front of a fan and drinking something containing more ice than liquid, I am going to respect their opinion.

Quietly.

Because October is coming.

And when Becky posts “OMG SWEATER WEATHER!!! 🍂☕🧡,” I will have screenshots.