’Tis the Season to Get Back With Your Ex

Forget all that talk of Rat Boy Summer. Stop stocking up on corner-shop room odorizer for your Brat Girl one. There’s a hot, new season in town—and you should really get on board with it. Esteemed readers, let me welcome you to… The Get-Back-With-Your-Ex Summer! Yes, that’s right: three to four months (weather dependent) of hooking up with former flames and having a lovely time.

All the cool girls are doing it. And by “all the cool girls,” I mean Kendall Jenner. Kendall—who split from rapper Bad Bunny in December—has been seen loved up with her ex in both Puerto Rico and Paris. “It’s going well and they’re prioritizing spending time together as they figure it out,” a “friend” is reported to have said of the reunion. “It’s like they needed the break to miss each other enough,” another “insider” told the press.

Of course, Kendall’s not the only one at it. In June, Mary-Kate Olsen appeared to have a brief tryst (or, at least, a very friendly evening) with Sean Avery, a retired hockey player whom she was last linked to way back in 2007, when she was better known for her penchant for Skins eyeliner and really long beaded necklaces than her stunning knack for designing minimalist It-bags. (She’s now linked to PC Valmorbida.) Meanwhile, Cardi B basically announced on her socials that she’d hooked up with her ex-husband Offset at a New Year’s party. They were linked for months—until she revealed on Instagram that she’s single again.

Now, I can imagine you might have your doubts about Get-Back-With-Your-Ex Summer. That’s fair. On the surface, one might think it’s a terrible idea, a trend that could lead to serious heartbreak (or, at least, to your friends resenting you for inviting some loser from 2015 back into the WhatsApp group). Maybe you’re sitting at home reading this and thinking: Are you seriously suggesting we all make some very high-risk romantic decisions just because Page Six thinks Kendall Jenner is? And my answer to that is: yes. Winter is for thinking about stability and the future; summer is for silly decisions and shagging. This is the moment to get back in touch with anyone whose last name is listed in your phone as “Tinder.”

Of course, there’s an elephant in the room. Good luck to our girl Kendall, but resuscitated relationships are, statistically speaking, not necessarily destined for success. A (somewhat dubious) survey told me that 40 to 50% of us will get back with an ex in our lifetimes, and most of those reunions will not work out. (I even wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago about how easy it is for us to fall for “it was always him” thinking. Bad!) But don’t worry about all that. Frankly, 70% of all relationships don’t last a year, so it’s not like you’ve got a statistically high chance of any relationship working out, really. Might as well just have a laugh and see where things go.

What you really should be worrying about is how to do Get-Back-With-Your-Ex Summer in a way that’s chic rather than cringe. And it’s a fine tightrope to tread. For a start, there’s a framework you should put in place when selecting which partner to return to in order to avoid total humiliation. Are you going to get back together with someone who cheated on you or totally disrespected you? No. If you were the breaker-upper, will you be reaching out to your ex without really, really thinking about it? No. If your friends despised your ex last time, will you be giving things another go? I mean, maybe, but I’d suggest in a quiet, “once-a-week secret hook-up” way, rather than a dash to the chapel. Basically, an ideal situation is to re-date someone who dumped you because they were moving abroad or dealing with a tragic pet death rather than someone who realized they didn’t actually like you.

And when it comes to kicking things off? There are some easy guidelines to follow. Not chic: spending hours stalking your ex’s social media profiles to work out if they’re single. Chic: bumping into them on a dating app and confidently swiping left. Not chic: sending a groveling message, telling your ex you want them back. Chic: asking them for a “catch-up” coffee or pint (although pints are disgusting, a hill I will die on), stumbling back to theirs, and then staying there for the next six months. Not chic: spending hours messaging mates to get their opinion on what you should do. Chic: not telling any of your friends—except maybe your absolute best mate—until you’ve worked out if you and your ex are actually a thing or you’re both just getting some unfinished business out of your system. Essentially what I’m saying is: don’t push it or obsess over it. Be a Samantha rather than Carrie. That’s what July and August are for. If you can’t make dumb, horny choices in this, the dumbest, horniest time of the year, when can you?

That feels like a very poignant way to leave this earnest and not at all silly article. I hope you have found it informative and inspiring. In all seriousness, though, remember every relationship—from the love of your life to a deeply stupid two-week fling with your former high school boyfriend while he’s randomly staying in your new neighborhood on holiday—teaches you something about yourself. And, most of the time, that’s a good thing. Life’s not about the destination, after all. It’s about the exes you make (and then revisit) along the way.