When someone asks about my dream vacation, I’m never going to say the beach. And I’ve always felt a little self-conscious about that opinion.

Turks and Caicos, Aruba, Fiji, the Dominican Republic, Maui — the beach always seems to top travel wish lists.  

I’m not going to claim that I hate the beach. I do love eating ice cream on the boardwalk and watching the sun set behind the waves. But I have a running list of complaints that might begin to explain my aversion. 

First, salt water. While some love the feeling of salt clinging to your arms, legs, scalp, hair and ears, a long day at the beach only makes my skin crawl. And don’t get me started on the taste; I’ll be licking my lips for the next four hours, wondering how the saltiness lingers. 

Second, I hate lying in the sun. Sorry, Lorde, but I try to stay as far away from solar power as possible. Frankly, the sun scares me. I always hunt for the tiniest sliver of shade to stand in. I plan my walks on specific sides of the street to reduce my time in the light. I’m always thinking about my next layer of sunscreen. (And I even think I look worse after tanning.) 

Then, there’s the sand that somehow sticks to every part of your body. Coupled with the five layers of sunscreen I slathered on and the never-ending taste of salt, this unholy trinity never ceases to make me sprint to the shower. 

But honestly, the elements are not the real reason I don’t like the beach. 

The truth is, despite my neurotic distastes, some of my favorite childhood experiences happened at the beach. 

When I was 7, my family rented a beach house in the Outer Banks with three other families. I cried on the last day because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving.

I remember smuggling a pound of seashells home in my backpack after my mom insisted I could only keep a few of my favorites. I remember hunting for hermit crabs in the sand, staying outside until the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and waking up every morning excited to spend another day with my friends and family. 

On another trip, when I was 8, I  built a sand castle with a kid from Texas, who became my best friend in about 15 minutes. I think we bonded over DragonVale or something along those lines. We spent every waking moment of the next few days together. 

When we went home, we FaceTimed every week for five months. Now I can’t remember his name. Somewhere along the way, it slipped my mind.

Looking back, I’ve realized that while I’ve always been grossed out by sand and saltwater, what truly changed my perception of the beach was the way I experienced it.

Instead of digging holes and searching for the most colorful shells, I began looking around me, looking at people who seemed fitter than me, tanner than me, more comfortable in their own skin. Everyone, it seemed, was having more fun than I was.

At the beach, I felt exposed. Not just to the sand, the sun, the salt, but to the people around me. 

Four summers ago, I watched “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” and I just remember thinking, “Wow, why does everyone but me seem to have the time of their lives at the beach?” (Side note: I only made it through the first season, and thank God that awful show is over.)

I write this all to say, I went to the beach last weekend for the Fourth of July. 

I was with two of the first friends I ever made at Northwestern. We raced up and down the dunes and into the water and gabbed on the beach before stopping for ice cream and the juiciest Michigan blueberries from the farmers market. 

I wish I had brought my sunglasses. I wish there weren’t a million dead bugs in the water. But I didn’t hate it. Maybe because it was a freshwater lake. Or, maybe, just maybe, there was something else to it, too.

David Sun is a rising Medill senior and author of “Perpetual Flop.” He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.