Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, and it’s unofficially officially summer in the city. The Summer House crew has begun their weekend exoduses to the Hamptons (read: I can now find street parking on Saturday morning.) The radio is playing Rockaway Beach ad nauseum (read: time to make a new driving playlist). And home goods stores are overstocked with patriotic trimmings and patio furniture just in time for BBQ season (read: I just put in an order for a new copper-top Weber on homedepot.com.)

Yes, sandals can return to rotation and we can all finally start to check things off our Summer 2014 bucket list. It’s time to schedule picnics with the girls, fishing trips with your favorite couple, hikes with your dudes, or late night rooftop fetes with the gang.

It is also, arguably, time for summer flings.

“How do you feel about your first summer in a while as single girl,” my mother asked as we soaked our feet in the adjacent pedicure stations.

“Excited.”

I hadn’t realized it till she mentioned it, but my last three summers had been taken over by new relationships. It seems my personal Cupid missed Valentine’s Day and struck on Memorial Day. I was an annual victim of summer love. And so, it was in with white pants and the whirlwind romance, out with the grand plans for a girls-only trip to that nude beach or the impromptu Finger Lakes weekend wine tour or the sick day Montauk adventure.

We might be in the age of hanging out, but real relationships don’t develop while our friends are watching. I dated men who wanted real relationships. So while I had me a blast (and then some) with my summer lovin’s, I also cut short the year’s longer, carefree days built for reunions and flings.

Being single in the summer means I can see someone different every weekend. Being single in the summer means freedom… for everything.

“I’ve been invited to lunch by a man who co-founded one of the internet’s most-used sites for booking hotel rooms,” I relayed, receiving a look of doubt in return.

“Don’t worry. It’s not going to be anything serious… unless he has a seaplane,” I assured her. “If he has a seaplane, I’ll consider making him a regular on the social rotation. I want to go to Montauk this summer, and I don’t feel like taking the Jitney.”