Can I Have a Hot Girl Summer in a Long-Term Relationship?

Looking back at my life in lockdown it feels bizarre to admit that I was actually quite happy. I got a dog. I made one—exactly one—sourdough loaf. I even read Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity to keep the spark alive with my very lovely (and very hot) boyfriend Ace, with whom I was now spending every single waking minute. And somehow, we made it work. (Friday night was sex night. Needs must.)

But as a result, and as lockdown has lifted, I have to admit that I have a knot growing in my stomach about how to reconcile this new life of dog walks and intimate, romantic sex with our old life of dinnering, dancing, and occasional dark-rooming. Since the new Roaring Twenties got off to such an incomparably dire start thanks to Miss Rona, it feels like there’s a gentle pressure to make up for lost time. I might be in a long-term relationship, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that deep down, I’m ready to have the ultimate “hot girl summer.”

The contrast of my two modes was brought into sharp relief two weeks ago. Despite never in my life having received a flirtatious DM (if you can believe it) not one, but two separate people reached out to ask me on a date. Perhaps it’s the year-long devotion to my running app, voiced by a D-list British celebrity who tells me to “keep on keeping on!” every three minutes. Or perhaps it’s the glamorous, intellectual energy I’d been radiating during lockdown on my daily dog-walks while wearing worker boots, an Acne rain jacket, and a battered Bloomsbury tote bag. If that’s not glamorous and intellectual, I don’t know what is.

Or maybe there’s just something in the air. It could be an energy a friend of mine termed “horny and traumatized”: a phenomenon brought about by such a lack of touch, a lack of interaction, a lack of even the sniff of that heady thing my friends and I call “potential”—anything from a shared glance in a coffee shop, to a straight-up offer of sex at the club—that now we’re seeing it everywhere, even in my inbox.

But the real problem is that, as I previously mentioned, I’m in a long-term, monogamish relationship which somewhat complicates this urge for a summer of heat, in more senses than one. After all, the very definition of a hot girl summer—according to the gospel of Megan Thee Stallion—means “giving no fucks about men while driving the boat.”

I love my boyfriend, but I still want a stranger to kiss me in a club and then run nude with me on the beach at dawn. I want someone to slide into my DMs and then slide their tongue into my now-unmasked mouth. I want to feel the zing of potential and, even for a second, allow myself to imagine what comes after: a summer of brazenness, banging, and boating. Some of it with Ace there, but also some of it while he’s home looking after Celine Dion (our dog).

I respond to the DMs: that sounds great *blush emoji*, but give nothing more. No when’s good?, but no instant I HAVE A BOYFRIEND, BACK OFF either. Instead, I decide to do the mature thing—since I turn 30 in two months—and just speak to Ace about it.

Okay. So. Umm. Okay. Ummm. He’s busy reading a book about gay Russians before the revolution. So. I think I’ve kind of been asked on a date. He closes the book. But obviously, you know, I like, don’t know what to say. He draws breath.

Immediately a part of me wishes I hadn’t said anything. Experience has taught me that sometimes it’s better to repress something small—be it a desire or an annoyance—rather than upset things in a relationship that’s consistently pretty good. Can’t you just be happy with what you’ve got? Why do you need more? But my answer to that is this: Why can’t I try something different? Some people moved out of the city—why can’t we move out of monogamy?

Does finding love and sticking with it mean that I’ll never be able to experience that feeling of potential I so loved in my early twenties? As we grow up and couple up, it feels expected that we take our desire and desirability off the market. But why should we? Why should we have to do the dance of Perel and work out how to stay together—and want to fuck each other—forever, and not even entertain the idea of sleeping with other people to keep the spark alive?

Of course, down that road may lie the potential for a great relationship, but also potential for great hurt. At a dinner last week with a group of queer friends, we got to talking about what makes a non-monogamous relationship work. The discussion centred mostly around the topic of discussion itself. One friend said her open relationship went up in flames because they talked too much and it took the sex out of the primary partnership. They left each other a month after they went open. Another couple who have been successfully open for three years said that it’s the discussion that makes their open relationship work, both emotionally and sexually. That compersion—or “good jealousy” as they called it—actually made their sex life even hotter.

What we all agreed upon, though, was that given relationships so often either end, or end up unhappy, that it’s worth talking about it even once. My partner and I might have been together for six years, but if we can’t discuss these desires now, what happens to our desires—whether sexual fantasies, career aspirations, or just what you fancy for dinner—after 16 years? Or 60?

Ace puts down the book, and looks up.

You should go. If it’s a date it’s a date. If it’s not it’s not. We can discuss it as we go.

So let my hot girl summer commence. I’ll report back.

Originally Appeared on Vogue