It was a magical couple of weeks maybe. He was a ruggedly handsome year-round resident of the idyllic beach town. She was a stunningly beautiful ingenue who had come for a vacation, and it probably happened in the summer. They met cute at the ice cream parlor or the surf shop or the carnival or something. They had nothing in common, but from then on, their romance was the yardstick by which all their long-term relationships would be measured and fall short — if they even had long-term relationships. Such is the power of the Forever Fling.
The Forever Fling begins as a time-limited romance punctuated by a strong initial attraction and immediate attachment until forces beyond the couple's control — war, college, disapproving parents — separate them. Depending on the reason for their separation, they may attempt a Long-Distance Relationship, which inevitably falls apart. If this is not feasible, they may promise to wait until they can be together again, or they leave their reconnection up to fate. Or one can go to unreasonable, intrusive lengths to reconnect with the other, which are justified In-Universe because their feelings are true. In any event, they've decided that they've found their One True Love, interpreting their passion as a genuine connection despite little else to back it up.
The couple tends to be in their teens or early twenties, with limited dating histories. They often experience Their First Time during the fling, making them prone to Puppy Love and Wangst, especially if they are still teenagers whose judgment is clouded by hormones. If the couple meets when they are both older, one has often just left a serious partner or is debating whether or not they should, which makes them vulnerable to the affections of the other.
When the couple reunites after a period of separation, coitus will ensue, especially if it hadn't before. From there, they must decide whether to try to build a permanent relationship, which circumstances may prevent. The most rose-colored examples of the Forever Fling will see the couple reunite permanently and go on to be Happily Married against all odds. A Forever Fling may also have a Bittersweet Ending in which one half of the couple dies and is beloved for all eternity by the other.
In some cases, a Second Love may have entered the picture. This Romantic False Lead may be a Hopeless Suitor whose only crime was not being the real romantic lead. Or they may be a Designated Villain to excuse any adultery. Either way, they will most likely become the Romantic Runner-Up. If they don't, that half of the Forever Fling will never truly love them and always have stronger feelings for their other half. If the other half of the fling is still single, it's because their love for their fling partner is still so strong that they have never loved, dated, or felt attracted to anyone else since.
In short, a Forever Fling essentially combines the impulsive emotional commitment of a Fourth-Date Marriage with the delayed official coupledom of a New Old Flame. Related to The First Cut Is the Deepest. Compare The One That Got Away, which only exists in the memories of one half of the couple. Contrast Unrequited Love Lasts Forever, in which only one half of the couple ever loved the other, and Old Flame Fizzle, in which the couple reconnects only to discover that they've changed with time, or that they didn't know each other well enough to justify their love. Also contrast Trial-Period Dating, when the brevity of the relationship is intended as the two are dating only to test their compatibility.
Examples:
- The 1995 film Before Sunrise and its sequels Before Sunset and Before Midnight hinge on a Forever Fling. Jesse and Celine meet and fall in love over the course of a single day, reconnect nine years later to find their feelings unchanged, and go on to marry and have two children.
- Letters to Juliet: Claire Smith left a letter for Juliet Capulet in Verona in 1957, asking for advice on whether or not to run off with Lorenzo, her first love whom she met that summer. Protagonist Sophie finds the unread letter 50 years later and sends a belated reply, suggesting Claire go to Lorenzo. On her suggestion, the now-elderly and widowed Claire returns with her grandson Charlie to search for the long-lost love she left behind, with Sophie joining the search so she can write about it. When Claire does find Lorenzo, he has conveniently been widowed as well, and the two get married at the end of the film. Downplayed, since Claire initially only wants to apologize for running away, Charlie points out that calling Lorenzo her soul mate invalidates Charlie's entire existence, and Lorenzo and Claire still express love for their late spouses.
- Sophie and Charlie, meanwhile, make a connection of their own, despite Sophie being engaged. After returning home with her fiancé and losing contact with Charlie, Sophie eventually realizes she and her fiancé have fallen out of love with each other, and goes back to Italy for Claire and Lorenzo's wedding, hoping to reunite with Charlie. She's initially disappointed, since Charlie brought another woman with him, only for him to reveal the woman is just his cousin. They kiss and make their relationship official.
- The 2001 film Serendipity is an extreme example: Jonathan and Sara only meet for several hours before being separated for several years. They both go on to find Second Love, but pre-wedding jitters inspire both to try to find one another again.
- Ingmar Bergman's Summer Interlude is about Marie, a ballerina, hung up about a summer fling she had 13 years before with a guy named Henrik, who died. She actually gets over it by the end of the movie and hooks up with someone else.
- Lolita: Parodied and deconstructed: Humbert Humbert lies the blame for his sexual obsession with "nymphets" (girls ranging in age from around 8 to early teens) on one of these he had with Annabel Lee when they were in their early teens on vacation. After being separated after the summer, Annabel contracted tuberculosis and died, so no reunion ever took place...except in Humbert's mind, because he intentionally seeks out replacements for Annabel to molest (or, in Humbert's mind, love, seduce, and fulfill what he couldn't have with Annabel).
- Lords and Ladies: Granny Weatherwax, the most powerful witch on the Discworld, meets up with Mustrum Ridcully, Arch-Chancellor of Unseen University and the Disc's most powerful wizard. Both are reminded that perhaps sixty years before, a senior student from Unseen University went to spend a summer in the bracing mountain air of Lancre and met a very young Witch. Of the two, Ridcully is somewhat inclined to put a romantic interpretation on the fact that both have remained single, while Granny is more practical about it and points out that it's more to do with them both choosing careers that don't encourage personal attachments. And at the end of the novel, a very young Wizard who travelled out with Ridcully asks to spend a little more time in Lancre, ostensibly to study magnetic stones. But there's a young Witch who wants to look at the stones with him...
- Deconstructed and Played for Horror in The Sleeping Beauty Killer, which features a case of this warped into obsession and delusion. It's revealed that Angela briefly dated Hunter when she was in her twenties and she fell in love with him, but they broke up before long because Hunter felt there were No Sparks between them (with Angela pretending to feel the same way to save face). Although Angela subsequently got into a serious relationship, she still pined for Hunter, but he eventually moved on with Casey, who he planned to marry. Angela tried to convince Hunter to leave Casey and when he refused, she lost it and shot him dead. Angela soon broke up with her boyfriend after he discovered her obsession with Hunter and she told him he'd never compare. In the fifteen years since Hunter's death, Angela has never been able to hold down another relationship because she's still obsessed with Hunter, who didn't even return her feelings.
- The works of Nicholas Sparks are rife with Forever Flings, most famously Trope Codifier The Notebook, in which Noah and Allie's teenage summer romance sets the course for the rest of their lives. Variants are also present in these Sparks novels:
- Message in a Bottle: Theresa and Garrett meet and fall in love within a week. Theresa becomes immediately ready to be with Garrett permanently, but he hesitates due to lingering grief over his first wife, Catherine. He does eventually decide to move on with Theresa but dies in an ocean storm before he can.
- True Believer: Jeremy and Lexie spend about a week together before Jeremy returns home to New York, only to fly straight back to North Carolina to pledge his love to Lexie. Her unexpected pregnancy prompts them to get married, despite being aware of how little they know about each other until Lexie dies in childbirth.
- Dear John: John and Savannah fall in love within two weeks and attempt to stay together despite John's overseas military service. The distance weighs on Savannah and she breaks up with John, but never stops loving him despite having married someone else. In the book, the fate of their relationship is ambiguous; in the movie, it's implied that they get back together after Savannah's husband dies.
- Nights in Rodanthe: Paul and Adrienne meet and fall in love over a weekend until work and family obligations force them to separate. They attempt to stay together, but Paul dies in a mudslide.
- The Best of Me: Dawson and Amanda's high-school relationship ends when Dawson is arrested. They reconnect after 20 years and decide to get back together, which is scuttled by Dawson's murder.
- The Choice: Travis and Gabby's affair of a couple of weeks is enough for Gabby to break off her engagement to Kevin and become engaged to Travis very shortly afterward.
- Every Breath: Tru and Hope meet and fall in love within several days, but they can't be together because of Tru's sterility and Hope's desire for a child. She marries her current boyfriend, but she never stops loving Tru. They reconnect in their old age and have a blissful few years together before Hope's death.
- Dreamland: Colby and Morgan meet on vacation in Florida and are exchanging "I love you"s after only three dates, although both are mindful of Colby's planned return to his family's farm in North Carolina and Morgan's dream of making it big in Nashville. She does, but she has rejoined Colby at the farm by the end of the story.
- As Time Goes By centers on a couple that reconnects unexpectedly 38 years after their wartime romance and slowly falls back in love.
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend centers on lead character Rebecca upending her entire life to get back together with a boy she dated at summer camp as a teenager. She succeeds... at first.
- An episode of Modern Love tells the story of Julie and Michael, who met over the summer and reconnected in middle age. While Julie is still very much in love with Michael and ends her marriage to be with him, their encounter inspires Michael to repair his foundering relationship with his own wife.
- Not an uncommon theme in Country Music, which tends to put an emphasis on Childhood Friend Romance, Love at First Sight, and young love in general. Examples:
- Tim McGraw's "Something Like That," in which the singer idealizes a girl he spent an afternoon with at a fair at the age of 17.
- Kenny Chesney's "Just Don't Happen Twice," in which the singer runs into a former girlfriend and recounts the moment he fell in love with her.
- Toby Keith's "We Were in Love," in which the singer tells the girl he dated at 17 that she's "the one," hoping to rekindle their romance.
- Luke Bryan's "Roller Coaster," in which the singer reminisces about a week-long summer romance and wonders what became of the girl, wishing he didn't still feel as strongly about her as he does.
- Deanna Carter's "Strawberry Wine," in which the singer keeps returning to her grandfather's old farm, the site of a youthful romance she had with one of his farmhands. She wonders if she really misses the guy or the person she was then.
- Kevin Denney's "That's Just Jessie," in which the singer is still so infatuated by a love he had in "summer '89" that he gets lost in daydreaming about her, to the point he misses his exit to work or lets his coffee go cold. In the bridge he describes her as a "wildfire that I ain't put out yet."
- Come from Away: Based on a True Story, divorced Texan Diane and single British Nick meet on a flight that gets grounded in Newfoundland due to the September 11th terrorist attacks. They get to know each other and fall in love over the course of four days, before returning back to their home countries when the U.S. airspace reopens. They attempt a Long-Distance Relationship, but feel weird about it since the only reason they met was because of a terrible tragedy. However, they manage to make it work, with Nick transferring his job to Houston and moving in with Diane before getting married.
- Grease: Zig-Zagged. Danny and Sandy met on vacation and spent the previous summer together, thinking they'd never see each other again... only to discover they now go to the same high school! Initially subverted, since Greaser Delinquent Danny doesn't want to admit he still has feelings for Innocent Soprano Sandy in front of his friends, breaking Sandy's heart. The two struggle with a Will They or Won't They? throughout the play, with Danny trying to become a Lovable Jock for Sandy until Sandy decides to ditch her good girl image and get a Tomboyness Upgrade (by '50s standards, at least) for him.
