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Is kissing in the rain actually sexy?
After another Saturday of rain in Boston, I spoke with Dan Savage, a sex and relationship columnist from Seattle.
You’re reading Meredith Goldstein’s Love Letters newsletter for July 1. Each week, Meredith shares tales of human connection, thoughts on public policy and relationships, and behind-the-scenes stories about the Love Letters column and podcast.
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Let’s start with some interesting reads.
This is a Love Letters question about what people mean when they say, “I’m not ready to get married.”
This is a Big Day weddings story with a celebration held at one of my favorite botanical gardens.
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This is a story about noisy restaurants. I think it’s Love Letters relevant because restaurant noise messes with getting-to-know-you dates in a big way. Dates, in general. Who wants to spend an entire night saying, “What?”
A reminder: if you or someone you know is having a cool wedding, the application to be featured in The Big Day is always open.
And please, send an anonymous relationship question to the Love Letters column.
Savage rain
After the 900th Saturday of rain in Boston, I set up an interview with sex and relationship columnist Dan Savage, because he’s a Seattle person and knows how to keep cool even when it’s wet all over, all the time.
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Are movies lying to us when they tell us it’s very sexy to kiss in the rain? Or that romance and self-confidence can bloom under umbrellas?
Because in real life, from my experience, it’s all just … soggy.
I am sending this interview to you on a sunny day in Boston because more rain is coming. According to Dan, no matter our desired relationship status, we must carpe siccus. If I’m googling right, that’s Latin for “seize the dry.”
This conversation with Dan has been edited and condensed. We talked via Zoom. Two advice columnists, just thinking about the weather.
Meredith: It’s rained so many Saturdays. I know you’re used to it in Seattle. Am I wrong to think that people in New England let weather become part of their psychology?
Savage: Certainly weather affects mood, and our moods affect our relationships. In a big city with terrible weather, there’s this sense that you’ve endured the winter and you deserve the summer. But also summer — outside, when it’s nice and beautiful — is when people have chance encounters, when people leave the house … it is your opportunity, potentially on the days you have off, to have a rom-com style meeting where you’re not interviewing potential first dates on Hinge, but just bumping into someone because you’re moving around. … If the weather is [bad] long enough, it can impede the forming of a new relationship.
Meredith: Are we misunderstanding the potential of the rain here? Because I know that in movies, a lot of sexy things happen in the rain.
Savage: Sexy things happen in the rain to already-established couples. People don’t hang around outside in the rain in hopes of a chance encounter.
Meredith: Does that mean things are doomed in Seattle?
Savage: The secret about Seattle’s rain is what you’d call drizzle. This is drizzle. … But the gloom does get to people. It’s June. It’s cloudy. It’s been cloudy for weeks. It hasn’t really gotten above 70 more than once or twice, we call it June-uary. How do you get through it, Boston? You leave the house anyway, even though it’s raining. … If you go to Europe, even in [bad] weather, restaurants/outdoor seating are open, and people are sitting outside and enjoying, aesthetically, what it is about that weather, too. It is possible to leave the house and go places and do things. We just have it in our head as Americans that we can’t.
Meredith: I do think there is something exciting about [a nice day] after so many weekends of rain. Everybody wants to do all the things. Any advice you would give for people who finally get a nice Saturday?
Savage: Don’t wait, which is the lesson of the weather in Seattle. It can be super nice, and if you do that thing, like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a nice day,’ and then you dink around the house until 1 o’clock before you leave, you may be walking out to a 20-degree temperature drop and rain, even though it was sunny and 70-something for most of the morning. So get out the door, especially if you’re one of the people who’s been sitting at home complaining. Get out the door as soon as you can, as early as you can. People write to me – they write to you – “How do we meet people?” The apps are really frustrating. People feel like the apps are conning them into remaining perpetually single, and the advice is to go places, do things, run into people, and it doesn’t have to be nice out to do that. But boy, when it’s nice out, it’s easier to do that. It facilitates doing that, and the people you might meet are going to be in a better and more receptive mood. So get out of the [expletive] house or your apartment.
Butterfly effect
Please give the season finale of the podcast a listen. We learned a lot of lessons from Ed O’Brien of Zoo New England. The episode is a reflection on change — the kind we’ve explored all season — and a reminder of one of the most powerful symbols we have: the caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
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As you listen – wherever you get podcasts – you can picture Ed and I having our interview at Butterfly Hollow at the Franklin Park Zoo.
I’ll leave you with a photo of my visit.
— Meredith
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