1. You get defensive when people who don’t live near the beach talk about how much they love and miss the beach. They don’t know what “missing” and “loving” the beach feels like until they live 5 minutes from it their whole life and then have to go away to school.
2. A concerning amount of your conversations with your college friends while you’re away at school have to do with how much you miss the beach. If you put a dollar in a jar each time you said you miss it, you would certainly not be able to identify as “poor college students” anymore.
3. The amount of mountain bikes you see on campus makes you uncomfortable. Why are they all dark colors? Where are the sea foam green and pastel yellow beach Cruisers everybody rides at home?
4. When you’re sad, you want to go to the beach to be by yourself and think. When you’re stressed out, the smell of the beach and sound of the waves crashing always seems to make you feel better. But then where do you want to go when you’re happy? You got it- it’s still the beach.
5. A perfect date to you is going out to get ice cream and then driving down and parking at the beach. This being said, you have probably been on a date like this more than once. I would not doubt that you’ve shared a first kiss with someone on these beaches, too.
6. Your heart breaks while you’re away at school and you can no longer drive up and down Ocean Ave singing Jonas Brothers and High School Musical songs with the same friends you were singing those songs with when they first came out.
7. Being barefoot is normal for you. Shoes are annoying and they make it hard to walk in the sand. And if shoes have no place being on the beach, why should they have a place in your life?
8. You cannot fathom what people who don’t live near the beach do for fun in the summer. What do they do during the day when it’s nice out and they can’t lay out at the beach? What is a fun thing to do at night that doesn’t involve mini golf on the boardwalk, Kohr’s brother’s ice cream and fireworks?
9. When you’re away at school and you meet someone else who lives near the beach, you’re automatically friends. “I miss it so much I hate being this far from the beach!”
10. When you talk about home, whether it’s missing it or you solely counting down to your next return back to it, you don’t only mean your house and your family, but you mean the beach. It’s been a part of you your whole life, and no matter how far you may venture from it, it’ll always be a part of who you are.