Holiday flings are the stuff dreams are made of. You're in an exotic location, you meet someone new, sparks fly, you're swept off your feet (often literally) and suddenly you find yourself holding hands, sharing desserts and telling them your deepest darkest secrets. But how realistic are these unions?
With Asians making around 4.7 million trips overseas every year, there appears to be a whole lot of opportunities for the eager holiday maker. But do they work?
In the classic film Grease, the holiday fling between good girl Sandy and bad boy greaser Danny Zuko is doomed from the start; Dirty Dancing's holiday romance causes chaos when dance instructor Johnny falls in love with guest Baby during her family holiday, and in the 1989 flick Shirley Valentine, Shirley ups and leaves her nest in London for a two-week long vacation in Greece, has a fling with a tavern owner and ends up staying there forever.
Yet sadly when the tan fades, the cocktails stop flowing and the romantic setting disappears, things often change.
"Me? I've never found myself entwined in a holiday fling," laments CL, a 32-year-old. "Before even going there I always ask myself the hard questions: how will I feel about this bloke once I'm back on Aussie soil? Will he really look so appealing once I've got long working hours, the family to please and bills to pay? The answer is typically no, and thus so far I've completely managed to avoid the holiday thing."
Supporting this theory is the story of Dana Manning, a 24-year-old student who while studying abroad in Italy, meets a lovely Italian bloke who is ideal, (for the moment). Things seem dandy as they frolick to romantic tourist spots from the Piazza in Florence to the Spanish Steps in Rome, sip on piccolo lattes and share each other's choc chip gelato.However when Dana returns to her city, everything changes. Her Italian stallion doesn't seem quite so exciting anymore after he begins with incessant emailing, followed by late night phone calls (he doesn't seem to grasp the whole time difference thing) followed by the proclamation she was hoping never to hear: "I come to you on plane to zee you!" Eeek.
After an email announcing she was leaving again to go abroad with a nonchalant "Arrivederci!" he seemed to finally get the message - a holiday fling remains just that.
Then there was my online friend who met a British girl on a holiday abroad, dragged her all the way back to Manila, set her up with a job, an apartment, and even proposed, only to find that during a visit back to see her family before the wedding, she never returned.
So can a holiday fling ever lead to true love? Apparently not, reveals a survey for Sky Travel, which found that nearly nine out of 10 holiday flings are over within a week and last just three days on average! And while the majority of the 2,000 people surveyed said they have experienced a holiday romance with nearly half declaring that the heady mix of sun, sea and sand made falling in love all the easier, things were completely different once they returned back to home ground.
Can holiday romances last the distance? Are they a good idea?
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