In summer, it seems that something will happen that will help us give meaning to the rest of the year. It is an ideal space, as if it were ancient Arcadia, which we imagine full of vegetation, calm seas or endless sunsets. The presence of those friends with whom we would like to live it is not lacking, without realizing that this mental space is probably imposed and that the experiences are as different as the types of summers we will live.
We are not mythological beings, but we forget, even if the intensity of friendship makes us believe otherwise. Nor are we immortal, even if we believe it immersed in conversations that surround us in moments that seem never to end. It is in this intensity that summer friendships reside, making us believe that we are in The Secret Garden which Frances Hodgson Burnett described in her book.
Summer friends, the new ones crushed
Summer friendships can be a unique refuge, especially since one in five people (20%) suffer from unwanted loneliness in Spain, according to a study by the National Observatory of Unwanted Loneliness (SoledadES) published in 2024. A space in which we can be ourselves, away from those we frequent throughout the year. It does not have to be in summer when we feel the privilege of this connection, but it is true that this period offers an expected context that can intensify relationships.
Photographer Marina Barrio, known on social media as @minabarrio, shares with elDiario.es: “When I was little, I spent part of my summers at my grandmother’s house in Fuentes de Andalucía, a town here in Seville. I remember that my cousin and I would always hang out there with a little boy named Sebastián and we would have a great time with him. Sebastián makes me nostalgic, like ‘what will happen to that little boy?’”
It doesn’t have to be summer when we feel the privilege of this connection, but it is true that this time offers an expected context that can intensify relationships.
In our childhood we were also in places where it was easier to make friendships, to live them with intensity and where memory increases: “My parents enrolled me every summer in a campus and every year I made a different friend, since those I had made the year before were not there. It was a bit traumatic because I knew that the wonderful friendship I had made was already falling apart”, adds Marina.
Friendship during the summer, expectations or reality?
During the summer we are willing to add experiences and share. This disposition is not innate and is worked on. It is also useful that during this period there is usually much more time due to the holidays. According to the doctor of sociology Francesc Núñez Mosteo, “during the summer season we are not subject to schedules and all those lifestyles that work and routine impose on us. It is then that the anthropological need to know others and establish relationships with others is satisfied.
The privilege of having a vacation makes us develop a special disposition to friendship. “At present, intensity is desired in relationships. It is not so much a question of the nature of summer relationships or the fact that summer is special. We rediscover the value of what is shared and it takes on another dimension. This is where the meaning of life resides, in sharing,” adds the sociologist.
In summer we are not subject to schedules and all those lifestyles that work and routine impose on us. It is then that the anthropological need to know and interact with others is satisfied.
Francesc Nuñez Mosteo
— Doctor of Sociology
This adds to the hopes, according to Marina Barrio: “Summer has a point of idealization and projection of expectations.” During this period, the friends we make have a crucial weight, as the illustrator Lidia Lóuq also explains: “What I idealize most about this period is the memory of my childhood summer friendships. When I was little, I spent all day at the beach or the pool with my friends and my brother. “I remember it as a very beautiful moment that will never come back.”
Sometimes we want to create new memories based on past experiences, even if it is difficult to reproduce them. Therefore, it is best to be careful with expectations. “There are those for whom this period turns out to be much worse than what happens the rest of the year. The pressure and social expectations may not go hand in hand with the circumstances that occur,” explains sociologist Núñez Mosteo.
Summer and friends: intensity and memories
The summer season is a space in which meetings tend to happen more easily. “Life is made of meetings, because they can determine you for better or for worse. In summer, you feel like you are in the mood and if you are lucky enough to find someone with whom this “magic” happens, it is impressive. It makes people come back with an unforgettable memory, not because they have taken the great trip of their life, but because they have connected with someone.
Lidia Lóuq tells her experience about this: “When I was little, I went to the city or to the beach. I met friends that I had only seen during those months and in September we hoped that next summer would come so we could see each other again, but as I grew up, that faded, although I don’t forget them.
When I was little I would go to the city or to the beach. I met friends that I had only seen during those months and in September we hoped that next summer would come so we could see each other again, but as I grew up that faded, although I don’t forget them.
Lidia Louq
— illustrator
It would be worth thinking about what makes these encounters remain in the memory as places to return and get excited knowing that they can still happen and, perhaps, with the same intensity. According to psychologist Silvia González Moreno, “during the summer season, you are aware that you have a limited time in which you are going to interact with a group of people that you will not see later, so you try to enjoy it at the same time. maximum because you know that it is something ephemeral. That is what makes them very intense.”
We can also know that we are safe in that specific time and space, in which we can be without fear of being judged: “Being in a relationship with one or more people at a very specific time can help you open up more because you know that once “When that time is up, the friendship is going to stay there,” adds the psychologist.
A place to discover yourself
When we grow up, we don’t choose where we grow up. We are given a context in which we will evolve with other people, even if we have nothing in common with them. Summer is thus a haven of peace in which we can discover ourselves far from the place where being is not really an option.
Marina Barrio shares her experience: “Summer helps you feel that everything is going well for you because you can make friends in other contexts. At school, I had a best friend who I was always with, but from the 5th grade of primary education to the 2nd grade of ESO, the people in my class started to make me intimidation. So the places where I made friends without problems protected my self-esteem a little bit and showed me that I could make connections in other contexts. They also taught me that the problem was in that specific context and it wasn’t me. So I think the people I met outside of school played a pretty big role. That gave it a really big point of intensity.
This is how this time is not only a time, but also a dimension to get to know ourselves because the people with whom we share our routine do not allow us to be other versions of ourselves.
During the summer season, you are aware that you have a limited time during which you will interact with a group of people that you will not see later, so you try to make the most of it because you know that it is something ephemeral.
Silvia González Moreno
— psychologist
How to Make Friends in the Summer as an Adult?
After a certain age, it is difficult for us to find friends because the spaces we frequent are not conducive to it, but summer continues to resist as an impregnable place in which to know oneself is able to establish links in a more natural way. There are activities that can be done during the summer, such as creative retreats, in which you can build relationships.
“A few years ago I went to a retreat and what I lived in those days was a very intense experience. I remember it as six months of therapy in five days,” says Marina Barrio. “In these spaces, everyone has their own story that serves as a mirror and with which you learn. An absolute trust is generated because you know that you will probably never see it again. I think it is 100% the same concept as Summer Friends and there is an interest in FOMO, now or never.”
This 100% life in the present linked to knowing that there is a deadline could help us to focus more on our daily relationships and to know that creating new affections at any time of the year is possible, as well as the end of any relationship without fear of the duel.
During the summer, there can also be brief work experiences, an Interrail trip or study abroad stays that serve to create very intense memory bonds. As psychologist Silvia González explains: “People who have had these types of experiences, once the period is over, remember again and again how much they enjoyed it and how they generated certain friendships. I could talk, outside of the summer, about experiences like the Erasmus scholarship for example. We should ask ourselves: did you behave differently and then free yourself? Do you long for that part of yourself that was lost? If these experiences are similar in one way, it is because they last a short time.
The end of summer, what happens to friendship?
We can love our friends so much that our routine completely paralyzes them and the summer is focused entirely on a specific friendship. This happens when there is an understanding so deep that everything else seems to be eclipsed, making it difficult to end the shared space and time.
According to Francesc Núñez, “it is true that after a great euphoria, relaxation can come, but it is not necessarily sadness. It is the moment of the end of the intensity of the exceptional, of something that is not everyday. It is a drop in vital tone that can be experienced as a loss or as melancholy, but there are those who can experience it as the pleasure of memory. And it is in this last pleasure that these summer friendships can remain, despite the passing of time.
