"I go out, I feel miserable and I come home burned": people who hate summer
Every day this summer started with the same routine. I wake up, dip my head in a sink full of cold water, then check the weather app on my phone. I am not interested in forecasts for London, where I live, but for the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík. It's not just the weather in this city - temperature in the low 10s, a hint of rain - that excites me, but also the thrill of imagining a place where the hype around summer doesn't exist. . There's no pressure to do the summer "good"; no sense that you cram a year's worth of life into three months; no Fomo (fear of missing out) following endless scrolling Instagram stories with barbecues, festivals, beaches and thirst traps; no shame in preferring to stay indoors with your two biggest fans. It's time for me to confess: I hate summer.
The months of June to September have always given me anxiety. In the single-parent family I grew up in, there were few escape options abroad and the six-week summer school vacation was tricky. My mother, reasonably enough, wanted my sister and I out of the house, into the sun. I felt aimless, riding my bike down our street or hitting a tennis ball against our neighbors' wall until they got angry. Stories of my mother's idyllic childhood in the Sussex countryside, where trees were climbed at 8 a.m. and streams navigated at lunchtime, have been passed down to us like folklore. If I wanted to sit inside and read, or play Sonic the Hedgehog on a scorching Sega Mega Drive, I'd often feel guilty for not getting out to "enjoy it while it lasts." For an introverted child, it felt like a threat - and that feeling stayed with me.
But today I know I'm not the only one with aversion to everything that happens this season - hay fever, crippling heat, climate crisis anxiety, fatigue and sad summer depression (seasonal affective disorder), even the pressure of be happy. "It's never just summer, it's 'summer!' : when you're expected to be out every night and every weekend," says Chris Haigh, 31, from Leeds. He compares it to another high-pressure episode of the year: "It's Christmas on hard mode, because even Christmas really only lasts a day, while summer lasts for months."
< figure id="1769b904- 7e06-46a2-bd27-01206262a6c7" data-spacefinder-role="inline" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-10khgmf">
Same goes for Lauren Starkey, 34, from Brighton. Like us...
Every day this summer started with the same routine. I wake up, dip my head in a sink full of cold water, then check the weather app on my phone. I am not interested in forecasts for London, where I live, but for the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík. It's not just the weather in this city - temperature in the low 10s, a hint of rain - that excites me, but also the thrill of imagining a place where the hype around summer doesn't exist. . There's no pressure to do the summer "good"; no sense that you cram a year's worth of life into three months; no Fomo (fear of missing out) following endless scrolling Instagram stories with barbecues, festivals, beaches and thirst traps; no shame in preferring to stay indoors with your two biggest fans. It's time for me to confess: I hate summer.
The months of June to September have always given me anxiety. In the single-parent family I grew up in, there were few escape options abroad and the six-week summer school vacation was tricky. My mother, reasonably enough, wanted my sister and I out of the house, into the sun. I felt aimless, riding my bike down our street or hitting a tennis ball against our neighbors' wall until they got angry. Stories of my mother's idyllic childhood in the Sussex countryside, where trees were climbed at 8 a.m. and streams navigated at lunchtime, have been passed down to us like folklore. If I wanted to sit inside and read, or play Sonic the Hedgehog on a scorching Sega Mega Drive, I'd often feel guilty for not getting out to "enjoy it while it lasts." For an introverted child, it felt like a threat - and that feeling stayed with me.
But today I know I'm not the only one with aversion to everything that happens this season - hay fever, crippling heat, climate crisis anxiety, fatigue and sad summer depression (seasonal affective disorder), even the pressure of be happy. "It's never just summer, it's 'summer!' : when you're expected to be out every night and every weekend," says Chris Haigh, 31, from Leeds. He compares it to another high-pressure episode of the year: "It's Christmas on hard mode, because even Christmas really only lasts a day, while summer lasts for months."
< figure id="1769b904- 7e06-46a2-bd27-01206262a6c7" data-spacefinder-role="inline" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-10khgmf">Same goes for Lauren Starkey, 34, from Brighton. Like us...
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