There’s something about that special feeling you get when you’re on holiday. You’re away, living your best life and all bets are off. Normal life seems to be eons away, and actions don’t have consequences. That medium-ugly boy whose glance you keep catching across the room all of a sudden looks like Harry Styles and you are in love.
Holiday romances have a tendency to feel so much more passionate and intense than those you experience at home. Whether it is the knowledge that in just a few days you’ll part ways or whether it is the breathtaking scenery, something about it feels special. For better or for worse, when you come back to reality, you’ll always have that story in the back of your head, the what if’s and the what now’s. Will I ever see them again? Do I even want to? Would it be the same?
In my experience, what makes a holiday romance so intense is the ability to just say f*ck it and go for it. There are no inhibitions, if you give it a go and they reject you, you move on and that’s that. I mean who cares? The beauty of this newly gained confidence however, the ability to say whatever your thinking because in that very moment all bets are off, can create something beautiful. A whirlwind of passion that almost feels like love. It’s crazy how quickly you can form a connection with someone if you just try to let them in. Travelling will easily leave you struck by awe, but sharing that awe with someone who in other circumstances you’d never have gotten to know makes the experience tenfolds better. The relationships you form are somehow deeply intimate despite not really knowing each other. I’ve shared my deepest and darkest insecurities and fears with people whose last names I didn’t even know because in those moments, the surface level identifiers that take us through everyday life don’t matter. Holiday romances can for a split second give you the chance to peer deep into the soul of another human being, and even if you may never see them again, that is enriching.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s also a lot to be said about the downsides of the throws of passion when you’re away. Whether it’s pesky parents or trying to find a place for intimacy in your 12 bed shared hostel dorm, it’s not always easy. Kissing in the rain quickly gets cold and sex on the beach is definitely not as fun and effortless as the movies portray it to be, trust me. The brief relationships you have are romanticised when probably, they’re not quite as amazing as you remember, but there’s still something to be said about the lack of inhibition you get. I think all our lives would be better if we took that self-confidence, that willingness to open up and be vulnerable in front of a complete stranger and brought it into our everyday at home lives. Stay safe and be careful, but the next time you’re starting to feel those butterflies in your stomach, embrace your inner Natasha Bedingfield and release your inhibitions. Take a leap of faith and just go for it, what’s the worst thing that could happen?
