This Summer, Do You — And Everyone Around You, Too

In the Before Times, I once paid $25 to be a voyeur at a sex dungeon. (Yes, that’s all it costs.) But over the last year and change, I’ve forgotten what human skin feels like and whether it’s better, worse, or equal to my gravity blanket. As what they call an “elder millennial,” I will not allow this quarantine thing to steal any more of my remaining f*ckable years: I’m gearing up for a shot girl summer so spicy, it’ll make “WAP” sound like an ad for joining a convent.

Don’t get me wrong — quarantine dating had its benefits. If a dude was a creep, I just shut my laptop; while not as cathartic as flipping a table, it won’t get you banned from a restaurant. I haven’t done the awkward-check-dance in more than a year because I pay for my own internet, thankyouverymuch. I even briefly live-streamed dates from my bathtub. (When the fabric of society is torn asunder, you might as well invite all your friends and your mom to weigh in on your romantic entanglements.)

The novelty was fun, but then it… continued. But now, I’m ready to see what people look like without a Zoom filter and to get way closer than 6 feet apart. I’m gonna smash faces with strangers and lick every glass in the bar. Our collective standards for what constitutes an appropriate hookup have never been lower, and I'm ready to hit rock bottom.

I want to make out with a dude before being disappointed by his spelling.

For as long as I can remember, my goal has been getting into shenanigans — I am the girl who, if invited to a furry party, will show up with bells on (as I don’t own a fursuit). But this summer, the debauchery bar has been reset. For a brief quarantined moment, people thought cross-stitching and candle-making were the height of Saturday evening activities, meaning no matter how Hot Vax Summer turns out, the next few months will be wild by comparison. Indoor dining? Small talk with people you don’t live with? Dance-floor makeouts? I want to do literally anything and everything your brain can think of, except wear normal clothes.

And why not? Now that I’m allowed to interact IRL, I’m going to fully interact IRL. I didn’t avoid COVID just to get carpal tunnel from swiping. One of the only silver linings of the past year is that we have been gifted a plethora of easy openers: Which vaccine did you get? What type of flour did you use in your sourdough starter? What’s your new dog’s name? (Anyone else ready to adopt a dog solely for the post-quarantine meet-cutes?)

I want to make out with a dude before being disappointed by his spelling. Let me lock eyes with an average-looking stranger across a bar (an indoor bar), swap fluids, and find out later that he doesn’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re.

The pent-up hookup energy is palpable. Some of us had not one but two birthdays in the middle of a pandemic. People canceled weddings, divorces skyrocketed, and some of us weathered entire situationships by text. We lived through a period of time that likely will be its own unit in 10th grade history class. Let’s embrace the fact that the world is about to open up at the best and horniest time it possibly could: summer. If the sex dungeon taught me anything, it's that there's nothing wrong with doing you, and everyone else, too.