Sex and the Home of Blues

Summer is supposed to be the season of love, when those cheesy-ass romances are supposed to bloom like a rose, or something. But what about those of us who aren't that lucky? Those of us who have to spend those precious three months watching other couples frolic in the sand and feed each other chocolate strawberries? We try to handle it in different ways. We bury ourselves in work, a creative hobby, or we become the flirtacious life of the party. All to cover up the fact that we're sick of sitting on the sidelines like a chess club member at a junior high dance. Is it so wrong to find comfort in having someone to just flirt with and help you feel like a member of the club? Can it really be that bad to just want to have fun without having to go through all the messiness that even a casual relationship entails? Sometimes casual flirtation can be a good thing, but at other times we're accused of being teases, leading people on. Does this put us in the same category as the cheating, manipulating men we hope to avoid by not getting too close? Or are we merely cautious, smart even, to not get tangled up in a cliched, tangled romance that has about a 50% chance of making it past the 6 month mark?