Miss Bells

Dear my most honorable reader, like many of you I have recently graduated highschool and have entered what I call: summertime boredness. Summer in the tourist attraction that is Charleston should be the best time of the year. But for many of the 2024 graduating class it’s a drag. In our beloved city there are certain unspoken principles that most of us fall into. According to the U.S. Census Bureau there are 16,855 teens in the Charleston and Mount Pleasant area. With all these teens going to a handful of different high schools naturally they mix and know each other, if not personally then from mutuals. Still the question on my mind remains, how is it easy for some people to mix and not others?

This question seems to haunt one of my girlfriends Avery who takes the lack of invitations to other social groups quite personally. Last summer seemed to have given her the false presentation that our senior year (and senior summer) would be filled with endless pool parties and boat rides. I suppose this is my fault really because I am the one who dragged her along to those events. Myself only being invited because of my childhood friend status with the host who happened to be a private school girl. So what does one do when there are no more private school parties to attend on a Wednesday night during summer? You go to Target 30 minutes before closing time and buy things you don’t need, and that’s just what we did tonight. It really does feel nice to have friends to drag you out of bed to hang out, even if it is just for a Target trip.

So there we were Avery, Carrie and I roaming the isles, two single girls and one former single girl. Ever since Carrie started dating her girlfriend Lucille she no longer has a case of summertime boredom. With a girlfriend there was always something to do whether it be kayaking down shim creek or well doing each other. Things like, date nights downtown at Oku and beachdays with your other half are what always tug at a lonely single girl’s heart. Is that the solution to summertime boredness: a summertime fling?

Dearest reader, if I share my own experience with my summertime fling promise to keep it a secret? Good, last summer I did have a fling, who we’ll call G. And I can say in full confidence that there was not a dull moment that summer. When every spare thought you have is devoted to them there is no time to be bored. Everything felt new and exciting as if there was no other guy on planet earth. And when he’s the only guy on earth he seems that much better.

In true rom-com fashion we had our first kiss on the fourth of July during the fireworks. Sparks flew and I never wanted to let go of that spark. It was like a Hallmark movie where the main couple always shares their first kiss in the last five minutes of the movie. I totally love summer flings-I was totally in love. I thought we would last forever, I really did. I had visions of the wedding in my head. Summer flings are a slippery slope and should be handled with extreme caution. But eventually you have to ask yourself, what happens after summer when everything isn’t bright and sunny anymore? My Spark isn’t around this summer so was all that time wasted? Or was he the perfect cure to my summertime boredom? I really did want it to last though and tried my hardest to hold on to us. When you fall in love with someone with rose colored glasses on you miss all their red flags. Unfortunately everything seems very rosey and warm in the summer. I fell in love with the idea of G. and everything he might be rather than who he really was. As the sun dimmed the rose tinted classes came off and when it wasn’t so warm out anymore neither was my fling. Out with summer haze and in with the winter of revealing.

But my case is not unique. All over Charleston girls find guys they think will keep them warm during the winter but turn out to be less than desirable without the facade of summer. This has made many distrustful of the male race all together, but really can we blame them? Most turned out to be cheaters or just plain lazy. When they do have girlfriends their ego starts to grow until they think they deserve a better one and when they get that “better” one the cycle continues. In all this confusion where is the authenticity? The simpleness of a guy and a girl liking each other and deciding to go out. No pressure of a next date or the next season. Are we so focused on labels for our flings and situationships we forget to be authentic? And when we ignore authenticity we end up alone in the spring just as I did. This authenticity problem traces back to this city as a whole. For centuries Charleston has been the hub of elegance, historical tradition and chivalry but hidden is homelessness, crime and poverty. The same could be applied to its men (and boys) who take on the Charleston facade to mask their own shortcomings.

I needed a break from Charleston and luckily for me I had mature college friends to visit. I took a long weekend and had a much needed trip away from home. Although I’m not enrolled in any classes yet I found the whole trip to be very educational. The first night I stayed with my friend Marie she threw a wine night. First I met her roommate, Madeline who is your classic English major. Totally nice and totally bi-sexual. Another person who I am assuming is an English major of some kind because of how much she is into poetry is Meg. Meg has energy that you just want to be around, something she’s probably had since she was a kid. Something that doesn’t go away. I was very happy to be around these grown mature women for a change and found their company very pleasant. Julia, a true southern Texan, could make paint drying on the wall sound interesting. Super welcoming and made me excited for what is to come in the next four years. I’m jealous of her gift to make any story compelling.

When their friends started to arrive I never once felt like they were much different from the friends I have in highschool. Julia, who lived in C building about fifty yards away, started telling stories about her day as soon as she walked in. She went on about the difference of getting her groceries at Walmart versus Aldis. “The Aldi close to my work actually has good fresh produce, the kind I would actually” pause to hit her juul “eat. The Aldi’s near us, their produse isn’t very fresh. Walmart is cheap but for meat I’d go to Publix…”Like a kid in the candy store but the candy store is a grocery store and the kids are twenty years old. Julia was nice. I agree with her on more things than I don’t. As a Houston Texas girl I was quite surprised to find out she had a boyfriend because of her free spirit. The first red flag about this relationship was that she had nothing to say about him. She could go on about different kinds of produce but was indifferent to a question about her man.

Later in the night another joined our wine party. Lily was nice, I’ve seen her before. I don’t think she liked me very much, this can be attributed to my age and the fact I’m not in college yet. Or she could have only wanted to see her close friends. I’m not really sure. Anyways she had gotten back from a date and at this point most of the wine had been drankin. SHe went on the kind of date that you know wasn’t the best idea and you’d probably regret later. It seemed like she had more fun when she got to Marie’s place than she did the whole time with John. From the information I have here is what I’ve gathered about John: he’s a little odd and may be gay, oh and he’s best friends with Lily’s ex Alex. What made the date that much worse is that it was a secret from Alex and John could have just been using Lily to feel some type of way since he may be gay and all.

When Lily said he was a bit weird Meg asked “what is so weird about him?” Lily told us that John had offered to pay for her to get a third boob. Now I don’t know what context this was said in or if it was serious or not but it did give everyone a good laugh. I mean how silly, a third boob! Kind of childish really. Is this what college is? A play ground where the people playing on it are unsupervised and free to do whatever they dream of. Were all the college attendees just little kids in big girl outfits? I thought once I left home I would also be leaving the facades behind but they were still here. This is a social issue not a geographical one. Although they may not be fully mature these girls had been living on their own for a year if not more. That counts for something. They’ve been doing their own laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning and planning. Yes they still had that little girl in them but they had been faced with many challenges and rose to the occasion. Plus there was the fact they were all at school during the summer, doing research, internships or working. Very mature.

So maybe there’s more to it than just a set of stairs you take to be mature. Instead of a set of stairs it’s a roller coaster with many bumps and spins. I mean look at me, I came home feeling high and mighty from my big girl Greenville trip. But now I can’t even bring myself to call Mr. Sparks. He’s in Mexico right now. I’d like to know when he’s back and how he’s doing. Instead I’ll take the patient route and wait it out. It’s not like I’m itching to talk to him or anything. And it’s not like I’m putting up a facade right now. You’d think I’d know better after doing this for more than a year. I suppose this is just a bump on the roller coaster and I shouldn’t pay any mind to it.

Until next time,

-Ms. Bells