The Four Pins Guide To Having A Great Summer Date

Image via Complex Original

Get A Linen Suit

First things first, get a linen suit. Just because it’s hot does not mean it’s time to drop your steez. And like, whoa, you guys, if I ran into a guy on the street wearing a linen suit, I’d trip and fall down and giggle and start drooling and blushing and become filled with desire and be like, “Cool suit.”

Go Outside

You spent the past several months inside just holding each other, drinking soup laced with whiskey out of cups nursing a team of cockroaches into a juggernaut to retweet your every couples tweet. Now, escape hibernation and feel free! Go to the park! To one of these outdoor bars I've heard about! To a picnic! To Six Flags! To a water park, where you can be like, “Haha, that weird rash is totally from tubing down the DRAGON Speed Slide River and not from you, right?” You deserve it, you pasty nimrods.

Go Inside

OK, you flexed your outside game once, so now you’re done. It’s hot, and while your gal may look divine with a little perspiration-inspired shimmer, you probably look like Nick Nolte’s mugshot, floral shirt and all. It’s time to hunker down in the place where air conditioning lives, breathes, and plays: Forever21. Pack a little picnic of gin and beer, and relax beneath the racks on racks on racks of those necklaces strung with plastic bread and fruit and T-shirts that read “ME WANNA TINA GAVENCHY FOREVER” or whatever. This is your paradise, your oasis, your zion. Bring your iPad stocked with Do the Right Thing and make out! If you get kicked out of Forever21, go to whoever's apartment will look better on Instagram.

Get Hats

Develop a series of theme dates—fiesta, horse-themed picnic, baseball game, concert, Steve, luau—so that you can get really into hats. Bring that sombrero to your eight-hour margarita-fueled guacamole fest at the cheap Mexican joint down the street. Wear tassel hats to reenact Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass. Pop on a Comme des Fuckdown hat for that outdoor music festival because you sound like misery incarnate.

Get An Anthem

Every summer has a song, known to the general populace as “The Song Of The Summer” It's an idea that’s as played out as the previous sentence. Get your own private anthem. I propose Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer,” which is both smoky and melancholy, Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight," or Amanda Bynes’s first rap single, which has not been released or even written and is therefore yours for the taking. Just make some rhymes about breaking bongs because you can afford it and how “wearing a wig ain’t no sin though.”

Get Matching Outfits

You’re the man in the cool beautiful suit or whatever Carey Mulligan says to Leonardo de Wittbukater in the new documentary, Great Gatsbee: How Bullying Destroyed 1920s America.” But nothing says "true love, but the real thing" like matching linen suits or denim onesie or McNairy camo-print something-or-others.

Embrace The Rain

You’ll get caught outside in the rain at least once this summer, so just stop and laugh, taking her hand and raising your free arm to the sky like, “Nature!” Turn to her, lean in and whisper, “We’re totally in a Prince music video.”

Make A Boat Friend

Everyone’s looking for that friend who’s got a beach house and feels generous. The beach is overrated. It’s basically a big fish tank without water or cool plastic castles to swim in and out of. Instead, make a boat friend, who can whisk the both of you off on his yacht or dinghy, the wind blowing through your hair, the sea spraying in your face, the boat friend totally naked from the waist-down but who cares because he has a boat.

Deodorant On The Reg

Whether you’re picnicking in the park, boating in a sewer, or standing in a thunderstorm, you’re going to sweat, because it’s going to be 99 Totally Firey Degrees outside. Always carry some Old Spice in your...purse. Or something. Or just smell great. Smell great out there, you guys!

Lean In

A million years after global warming set in and this season became an increasingly firey pit of unholy heat, we are still sweating through summer dates in misery, etching out a living with air conditioning and sometimes those fan hats. This means that cooler, less miserable voices are still not being heard equally in the decisions that affect our summers most. This summer, learn specific steps you can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment and support a more enjoyable summer that less resembles an oven filled with molten lava. This is an inspiring call to action and blueprint for individual growth.