Is there anything worse than a big tease?

Think about it: You’ve just met your potential soul mate. Your vibes are intermingling to make harmonious music. He or she is really picking up what you’re putting down, until that I’m-an-awful-evil-tease-bomb. Their boyfriend/girlfriend is on their way to the party, too. You’ve just been led on and then hung out to dry.

Spring break is like the tease at that party. It knows how to lead you on with its sexy pinã coladas and its early morning nightcaps on the beach. It taunts you with warm sun, freedom and social acceptance of significant amounts of group binge drinking. Its your dream partner because suddenly your life is blissfully sunburned, and you’re ecstatic about it.

And sure, you and spring break may have a wonderful week, but your new companion is flaky. It’s a tease, because before long, spring break is bored with you and looking towards Sunday when the newest college kids head to the beach.

You’ve been led on.

As you head back to the coldest D.C. winter in years, in the seats nearest to the toilets on the plane, you think about the magic. You think about what could have been.

But spring break could care less that you’ve left the 85-degree weather for D.C.’s March tundra. Spring break is laughing with friends over the breakfast buffet about how it had you hooked, and now its picking out its next naïve victim.

Before long we’ll all be back in classrooms listening to “that guy” droning on about his personal political philosophy, wondering if that five-day romance with paradise ever even happened. The glow of running over the sand to get to waterfront clubs and napping for hours next to the white noise of a pool waterfall will begin to fade. The extreme pain that always accompanies that last few weeks of classroom incarceration will practically eclipse the way spring break broke your heart.

Still, you’ll think about spring break from time to time. When the wind is whipping down 23rd Street, you think of how spring break knew how to keep you warm at night. What a tease, because you know spring break isn’t thinking about you.

Spring break is keeping someone else warm now.