DEAR INDY

DEAR INDY PRESENTS... SEPTEMBER SCARIES!

Ah, summer: warm weather like a breath of relief or a nurturing hug; ecstatic trips to the beach, with its refreshing, purifying ocean; the joy of reuniting with high school friends; the comfort of returning to a familiar hometown; the feeling of endless freedom, with one warm, infinite night following endlessly after the other; a rainbow-sprinkled ice cream cone whose cold, sweet taste, for one fleeting moment, reminds you of being a child again. Well, that’s over, so welcome back to Dear Indy!* If you spent your summer at all like I did (interning remotely for Tesla, traveling bi-weekly between Ibiza and Mallorca by helicopter), you might be ready for a change of pace in the fall. Or, like this week’s advice-seeking readers, you might have some reservations about the start of the school year. Transitions can be difficult, so it’s a good thing I’m an expert at them. See how seamlessly I’m transitioning into this week’s first question?

Dear Indie,

Last spring I was involved with a casual but pretty consistent hookup. It was really fun, but now that school is starting up again, I’m getting a little nervous about seeing them. We never defined or labeled our situation, even when we said goodbye for the summer. I would be open to hooking up again, but I don’t know what to expect at the start of the semester. Should I try to start things back up? Should I play it cool and wait for them to approach me? Or should I just move on?

Love, Spring Flung

Dear Spring Flung,

They say there’s only seven stories—that is, seven basic narrative structures in all of storytelling. Some people take it even further and say that there’s only one story. (If you’re thinking to yourself, “that sounds pretty incorrect,” it might be! But bear with me.) I mention this for two reasons: one, because I’m certain you aren’t the only reader who’s ever fallen into this predicament and that many of you out there might be experiencing the same story; two, because this question kind of reminds me of the plot of Grease!

Obviously it’s not perfectly parallel. You’d have to change some of the lyrics in “Summer Loving” to “spring semester loving” and that would ruin the syllables and the rhythm of the song. But one key element remains the same: after some time apart, two lovers are reunited at school on very uncertain terms! And you already have an advantage over Sandy and Danny—they had no idea they were going to see each other again. At least you can form a plan!

Grease is actually a great model of what not to do in a situation like this. When Danny and Sandy are reunited for the first time, he acts like a complete dick to her, brushing off their steamy, romantic time together in Australia like it never happened. You don’t need to play it cool. In fact, the whole plot of the movie probably could have been avoided (which honestly maybe it should have been, unless you think stuff like a musical number about quitting cosmetology school is a normal and valuable thing to have in a movie) if Danny had just been upfront about being excited to see Sandy again.

So my advice is: if you’re still into it, ask them to hang out again. If their response is lukewarm or negative, take the hint and move on. Moral of the story is you’ll still have preserved your dignity, which is way better than Grease’s moral of the story, “change your entire personality to impress the guy you like.” If their response is enthusiastic, that’s great! Ride away in a flying car together. While you’re hanging out, you can even initiate a conversation about what you’re looking for out of the hookup. Remember, there are only seven stories, and the conflict of every single one of them could most likely be solved with a little plot device called “open communication.”

Dear Indie,

I’m excited to be back at school, but there’s something making me a little worried. While all of my friends spent the summer doing very legitimate internships in tech and finance, I spent the summer being a counselor for eight-year-olds at a sleepaway camp. It seems like everyone else left their summer gig with a huge paycheck and invaluable work experience, but I left mine with $300 and a staph infection. I’m starting to feel a little regretful and even a little inferior. Did I waste a really important opportunity?

Love, Counselor in Need of Counsel

Dear Counselor in Need of Counsel,

I think I understand the source of your panic. There’s only so many times you can delete a “Final Week to Share Your Summer Info!” email from Brown CareerLAB before you start to question everything. When you’re worried that you’ve made a grave, future-jeopardizing mistake, not even the tantalizing Echo-Dot-atthe-end-of-the-tunnel can compel you to trudge through the Career- LAB Summer Plans Survey.

While I have never been a camp counselor, I did once babysit for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, so I think I can probably empathize with your experience. Taking care of kids is difficult, and it teaches you a lot about life! Just because you didn’t make a gazillion dollars or get to wear a nametag/ID badge on a lanyard doesn’t mean your summer wasn’t valuable. For one, you did it for the children! No one has ever made a good argument against something for the children. But I’m also sure it must have transformed or affected you in some way, too, maybe by helping you learn how to live in the world with a renewed sense of wonder, or by helping you learn how to clean up a bunk bed that has been very thoroughly peed in.

You have the rest of your life to get a boring, urine-free, well-paid job. You managed to evade the selling of your soul to a corporate cubicle for another summer, which seems like a win to me. I bet some employers value the skill set that one develops as a camp counselor, maybe. And if you’re still really worried about your resume, you could look for an internship to do during the school year. There’s no reason to feel inferior to your friends, who all seem like sellouts and kind of annoying anyway.

As for the staph infection, I would try to not be so vocal about that.

* To clarify: The Indy is the publication, which is why the column is called “Dear Indy,” while I, Indie, am the columnist. If this is too confusing, you can read the Brown Daily Herald instead.