Every year, millions of college students travel far and wide to take a weeklong break from responsibility. That’s right — we’re talking spring break. The lore surrounding this magical time of Spring semester has been explored through film and, of course, YA romance novels. But do these idyllic storylines exist in the real world?
For Camila Peralta, a 19-year-old UF anthropology freshman, the perfect spring break love story has not found its way into her life. Nevertheless, she still thinks it can happen and can be real “if you make it real.”
To her, any flirty spring break story can become a reality.
“It’s just a matter of perception,” she said. “You can make up a whole romance in your head with a hot waiter or something, even though in reality, he just asked you if you want cheese or not.”
Life may not be a Nicholas Sparks novel after all, but some people really do have an exciting spring fling story.
Ariel Civelek, a 21-year-old UF business administration senior, said this week can certainly be reminiscent of romance novels. For her, it all started on the Monday of last year’s break. She met a charming college footballer at a nightclub in Fort Lauderdale, they exchanged contacts and before they knew it, they were frolicking on the beach together the next day. Not to mention every day after that.
She told me that with the time limitation, the pressure you feel in any budding relationship melts away.
“It was definitely something different compared to an actual relationship,” she said. “It was literally fun. You didn’t have to stress about ‘Is this someone going to text me?’ because spring break is known just to have fun, and that's literally what I did.”
When asked her about the time constraints spring break puts on a relationship, she said she found that it worked out perfectly for her.
“I don’t have time when I go back to school to actually commit or hang out with a guy 24 hours of the day,” Civelek said. “Doing nothing for a whole week, it was a huge factor in growing a relationship that fast.”
When you mix together a finite span of time, zero cares in the world, sand and sun, a perfect cocktail is created that yields these types of stories every single year. With spring break merely days away, what will be your story?
Contact Alyssa Archard at alyssaarchard@ufl.edu. Follow her on Twitter @Alyssa_Archard.
