9 People On The Summer Night They'll Never Forget

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1.

"Last summer, my girlfriend and I made plans to see a movie at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. We drove to the grocery store around 5, got a bunch of cheese and meat and snacks and wine, and then headed to the cemetery where we scored an amazing parking spot. The line went quickly, and around golden hour we got settled on the grass. It was perfect outside, maybe 74 degrees. Everyone was young and beautiful and cool and smiling and talking and enjoying being on this giant open grass field on such a perfect summer evening. We cracked open the wine, started eating, and smooched a bit. There was a DJ who was on until dark — when the movie started at 9 p.m. It was Raising Arizona, a classic.

"Along with a few hundred strangers, my girlfriend and I got to see one of the best movies ever made on a perfect LA summer night with good food and drink in our bellies.

"Perfect."

—Ben C.

2.

"One summer, my friends and I became huge fans of a writer-comedian turned rapper. We listened to his music obsessively and followed his every career move. We were fangirls 100% and bought tickets to his first concert in New York.

"The concert was awesome, and afterward we went downstairs to the bar to collect ourselves. We had a feeling that he might come to the bar, and sure enough, he did. But instead of lining up to take a pic, my friend and I ordered drinks and chatted among ourselves.

"Usually I try not to bother celebs, but this night I was struck with some other-worldly confidence, and I came up with a plan. I walked to the side of the line of fans, made eye contact with our guy, and casually asked him if I could get him a drink since I noticed he was empty-handed. He said yes, I ordered him a drink, and gave it to him. That was it. I went back to the bar and continued hanging with my friend until the line eventually thinned, and he approached us to say thank you.

"Long story short, we ended up getting an invite to the after party, and then to the band's hotel for the after-after party. The weather was summer-perfect, we were clear-headed, and every moment felt like a New York dream. Back at the hotel, they had an awesome view of the city, and we continued talking and hanging out on their balcony until the party winded down. My friend and I both wanted to end the note on a high and didn't want to overstay our welcome, so we eventually said our goodbyes and took cabs home just as the sun was rising. Everything about the night was perfect, and we were floating for weeks. We still talk about that night as one of our best ever!"

—Casey C.

3.

"My husband and I were at a fairly subdued black-tie wedding in Malibu a few summers back. The views were beautiful, but the guests were taking zero advantage of the open bar and the whole event was pretty awkwardly polite and superficial. While small-talking our way around the crowd, we happened to run into an old friend and her new S.O, both of whom looked similarly bored.

"The four of us made up our minds to make the night fun no matter what. After we polished off a healthy dose of champagne and showed off some embarrassingly energetic dancing, we took off to the nearest fast food place in our tuxes and gowns. From there, we hit up every dive bar and late night donut shop we could find and refused to surrender until 2. We took an ill-advised dip in our pool and finally all dozed off together on our couch. It was a great night and the four of us have been inseparable ever since."

—Heather C.

4.

"My friends and I have always been into nature — we knew the local forests like the backs of our hands. One night, my buddy Zach and I were just sitting around his house, feeling anxious, wishing there was a party we could sneak off to. But alas, it was a quiet night in Vermont.

"His mom had gone to bed, so we decided to sneak out for some other late-night hijinks. We packed up various explorer supplies and started following one of the nearby rivers toward its source. Three dogs and a wagon of kindling wood trundled in our wake. About four miles upstream, we decided to pitch camp at one of our favorite swimming spots, the Gorge.

"We sparked up a bonfire and cast out fishing lines in the stream as a couple hours rolled by. We talked about girls, college, parents, dreams, insecurities, and everything in between. All the while we played with the dogs, cooked hot dogs and potatoes, made s’mores. Before long, we noticed the sky had begun to lighten up, and we started to make our way back. These kind of nights may not have been all that exciting, but they were therapeutic in lots of ways. I’ll always have a soft spot for a babbling brook, crickets chirping, and a flickering campfire."

—Will S.

5.

"When I was 15, my friends and I snuck out of the house at night to ride our bikes to the beach to meet up with some boys we met earlier that day. It was a big group of teenage boys and girls, all gathered on the beach talking. I had my first 'make-out' kiss that night, and it was terrible, so I decided I would ditch my make-out partner and just hang with my best friend and the guy she was talking to.

"After a while, people started heading home since it was past midnight by this point, and eventually all that remained were me, my best friend Emily and this dude, Will. The three of us just talked about life, music, movies, and whatever 15-year-olds talk about, and I found that he and I had way more in common than Emily did with him. The sun was starting to come up, we were not tired one bit, and we all decided to sit on the jetty rocks to watch it rise over the ocean. I still remember it so vividly I can feel the grey sweater around my shoulders and pulled down to my fingers.

"I'd say it was about 6 a.m. when we finally headed home. Emily and I snuck back in my house without a hitch and hopped into bed. I heard my phone vibrate with a text, and it was Will saying I was the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Hyperbole or true intentions aside, that's pretty much all a 15-year-old wants to hear, especially after a perfect summer night like that."

—Mandy C.

6.

"My first summer living in NYC after college was like a dream, but one night in particular stands out. I just had just finished an intensive post-graduate program and gotten an offer for my first job, which I would start at the end of August. So I had a full month before that to just hang out and enjoy the city.

"The evening our intensive classes wrapped up, I headed downtown with a bunch of my friends from the program, and we found ourselves at a rooftop bar. The night was so clear you could actually see the stars, which is a rarity in NYC. I ran into a bunch of cute guys I knew from college and introduced them to my new friends from the program, and we were all just laughing and dancing. I was perfectly at ease, warm in the summer air, my breath catching every time I looked out and saw the city skyline sprawling around me.

"When we left, I got in a cab and rolled down the window as we zoomed up with West Side highway. The sun was just starting to come up over the Hudson, and I leaned my head against the open window and for a second, just closed my eyes and relished being 21 years old, lost in the pure joy of my first NYC summer, knowing I would want to remember this moment. And, man, do I still remember it."

—Tory H.

7.

"I enrolled in a study abroad program in Beijing in the summer between my second and third year of law school. I was 24 or 25 at the time, and I had been abroad before, but there was something about the combination of our age and the utter foreignness of our surroundings that gave us that delirious youthful rush you get during the first week of freshman year at college, or whenever it is you get your first real swig of 'adult' autonomy.

"One night toward the end of the trip we started off at a karaoke bar, haggling with the door guy over cover charge, then had a long, rambling midnight meal in an all night street market. From there, we went to an after-hours bar down an alley that one of our group had stumbled upon a few weeks earlier. When the bar finally threw us out, we all took taxis back to the hotel. It was about 5 a.m. Instead of falling into bed like we should have, a group of about six of us, people who hadn't known each other particularly well before the trip, decided we weren't quite done. So in the moderately less smoggy grey light of a Beijing Sunday morning we walked to the subway stop and rode the train down to Tiananmen Square.

"I remember watching the sun come up around 6:30 a.m. over the Forbidden City and thinking about how much history and human experience had occurred in the exact spot where I was standing. And I remember feeling a swell of emotion when I thought about how few people who grew up where I was from, the way I did, would ever have the opportunity to stand where I stood, half-drunk and exhausted, right at that moment.

"It was a good summer night."

—Eric S.

8.

"In 2013, I moved down to Nashville to be with my then-S.O., Megan. She drove all the way up to Chicago and packed up her car with my belongings — most of my things had been sent down with movers, but I underestimated the leftover items, and her car was bursting at the seams.

"Before this move, I had never spent any significant time in places that had so much lush greenery. It was early June, and Tennessee looked like a shining emerald.

"After driving for seven hours, we unloaded the car and went for a walk. It wasn't quite humid yet, so a walk in the twinkling sky was welcomed.

"Although we're not together anymore, I'll never forget the magical moment on that walk when I encountered a lightning bug for the first time in my life. It flew right in front of me, and Megan reached out and caught it in her hand. She held it, her hand glowing, and pointed her hands at me and then released it. It felt like i had been transported into a fairytale.

"I hope I never lose sight of that memory."

—Adriana R.

9.

"One perfect summer night, my friends and I went out to our favorite dancing spot, a little bar that became packed with people for soul night every Saturday. The DJ played classic Motown hits and we danced and danced — we started out just dancing with each other, but soon enough we found new friends on the floor and formed a new little group.

"We all stayed until the last song was played and the lights came on, but nobody felt ready to go home. Instead, the group of us trekked to one of our new friend's nearby apartments. We grabbed some drinks and went up to their roof deck, and sat there talking and laughing by the light of the city skyline, totally unaware of the time. Before I knew it, I looked at my phone and saw that it was 5:30 a.m. I finally made it back to my apartment around 7, and I fell into bed, knowing I'd had one of those magical summer nights that I'd remember forever."

—Jana P.

Illustration by William Smith / © BuzzFeed

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