I believe Snoopy used to start off his novels with the following line:
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
Of course, such a sentence couldn’t apply to June- a month mentioned in more of Sinatra’s love songs than any other. It is now a time of warmth, weddings, and half-day Fridays. It is a month we always look back upon fondly, simply because June once represented a time when school broke for the summer, or when we discovered who our teacher would be next September, or where our traveling summer team would be going for the next two months.
As we got older, the Jewish kids would go off to Teen Tour (I almost converted just to experience this perk). And religions of all types would take pleasure in camping trips, afternoon pool parties, and graduation bashes. Some of us were even lucky enough to go to the family beach house for the start of a magical summer at the Jersey Shore.
June was and is a fine time to be alive.
For Hoboken’s large single population, this is also a month of compensation: Payback for scrambling for an October wedding date, or watching 14 programs that overloaded your DVR, or spending far too many nights working out alone at the gym. 
Maybe you had an f-buddy to tickle that tingle periodically. Perhaps you were going through the motions (physically and figuratively) in a relationship that you knew was going absolutely nowhere. “Just get me to June”, you thought to yourself after Mr. or Miss Meaningless finally left your apartment in the morning…not having any idea they were simply the human version of a short-term sublet. Sure, you felt guilty for leading them on, but 30 years from now when you’re planning your retirement with someone whom you really, really prefer to be with, will you honestly care?
“Because when the summer arrives,” you reminded yourself, “all of this bullshit will be more than worth it.”
Guess what?
It’s your time now.
Life at the Jersey shore is one big built-in excuse for the irresponsible and the impetuous…an inherent validation of a consequence-free lifestyle.
Drink like you’re Pink or David Hasselhoff. You’re a Wedding Crasher. The Bachelor. Samantha Jones from “Sex in the City” on TBS. The fictional John Tucker (must die). The almost-fictional Paris Hilton (without the 8×10 cell). Make “Everything But…” a major player in your vernacular. Go ahead…carry around Magnums even if you have no intention of using them or possess the physical ability to do so.
Being a fornicatress or a himbo isn’t only accepted where the air is salty, it’s a friggin’ badge of honor for women and men alike. But that benefit only exists at the shore, because if you act morally bankrupt in Hoboken, you’ll be viewed like that Vegas stripper Stray-Rod was smart enough to be seen in public with.
At the beach promiscuity is chuckled off at those infamous carb-based last-night-in-review breakfasts with your shore housemates at Who’s on Third or Chicken or the Egg. What a feeling. You simply don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks, and like the prisoners in Shawshank, everyone is guilty of the same crime.
What’s that line from Pacino to a miscast Keanu in The Devil’s Advocate?
“Freedom baby…means never having to say you’re sorry.”
You’ve earned this right to laugh at your coupled friends. Remember all of that unwanted, disingenuous sympathy heaped upon you around Valentine’s Day? Or how about the dinner invite that never came (from the same people who used to call every Thursday night for Happy Hour when they were solo) because they didn’t want to hear about your immature, unattached existence while they wanted to discuss possible baby names and the myriad of Peerless faucets?
Fuck ’em.
Who’s laughing now, right?
They’re stuck in the suburbs watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition reruns on a weekend night. At the same time, you’re already buzzed at 7:30 from $1.00 Bud Lights at Union Landing or you’re soaking in Dog Voices at the Sea Shell Saturday afternoon Happy Hour for the 200th time. They may have had the upper hand after a dead December Wednesday night at The Goldhawk when sideways sleet made it impossible to find a cab, nut now, finally, it truly is the season to be jolly…
Fa-La-La-La-La-La…La-La-La-La.
They’re in bed before Leno comes on in order to get up early for that 20% off sale at Bed, Bath and Beyond. At the same time you’re just getting into a three-hour, pointless (but insanely entertaining) conversation with a suddenly uncommitted friend-of-a-friend whom you’ve coveted for years. This same person just conveniently broke up with their horrific significant other in April; maybe in time to shake off the Samsonite, maybe not. Whatever. Patience, or whatever it is that kept you single, may have paid off after all.
It’s a cheesy kiss on the beach under a full moon with waves crashing right out of a Mandy Moore flick, or something sloppy on the Edgar’s dance floor, or a mudslide-induced moment of bliss at sunset on a Sunday Night at the Ketch. Meanwhile back in Pleasantville, they abandoned sex after child #1 was born (outside of the scheduled predictability twice per weekend) like almost every other hitched duo out there. Have fun with that…
From September through May you had wondered if going stag was worth it. You had your freedom, yes, but the excitement outside of a few good first and second dates was as lacking as the 26 Democratic Presidential candidates. On non-date nights, the aftermath of heavy consumption in the city took days to recover from…just why are hangovers so much more potent when it’s cold?
You’ve thought out loud if there is somehow something amiss about your mental state, your appearance, your breath…what the hell is the problem, exactly? Your parents were married at 23 and you aren’t anywhere near the altar at 33.
“Maybe it is never going to happen,” you wondered while doing your laundry during some random January night. Was it time to buy a companion in the form of a dog or a cat? Was it too late to live the American dream of a spouse, two kids, the aforementioned dog and/or cat and a Weber Grill?
But just when these thoughts made you share an outlook on life as bleak as AJ Soprano’s, on the horizon there was always the thought of another summer beach house to pacify such concerns. Survive until month 6, you reasoned, and all of the rubbish of fall, winter and spring would help you appreciate the sandy moments that much more.
If the three seasons that aren’t summer are a Sopranos episode (without the indiscriminate killing), summer would be your Entourage set (without Lloyd). Your Big Love. Your Tiffany-Amber Thiessen/post-Brenda-years time to shine.
June is here.
It’s your time, singles.
The dark and stormy nights are over.