There is a certain kind of person who just takes to summer. When the mercury rises to heatwave proportions, they wholly embrace the scorching rays, casually shedding some (though not, all) of their clothes to reveal a glowing body. If they are not dark already, an hour in the sun sees their skin immediately turn a gorgeous nut brown, dotted with constellations of attractive freckles. They glide, scented, through air as thick and sticky as hot soup, exuding cool, never wilting. They stop wearing shoes and take wholly to nature, letting their salted hair flow untamed and beachy, for they are a child of the seasons. They are the gods and goddesses of our endless picnic days. Summer literally becomes them.

I am not a summer person. I am the person sitting pink, sweaty and panting on someone else’s wall, gulping down water, as my vision goes fuzzy and black in the corners. Don’t get me wrong: many of us non-summer people adore summer, it is just that summer does not adore us. How and why does it hate us? Let me count the ways.

Sunburn

British people are infamous for their strict adherence to the motto “sun’s out, buns out”, immediately opting to tear off all their clothes the minute there is a hint of hot weather. These people sneer at factor 30, crying: “Pass me the baby oil, base tans are for losers!” Flash forward two hours and the curse of the lobster is upon them, yet there they are, bravely trying to soldier on, sipping on a Grolsch and trying to act casual (note: this is impossible when severely sunburnt).

Those of us who have come to terms with the Celtic pallor of our skins have usually learned our lessons the hard way and now take preventive measures that some may call extreme. We are the people who, on discovering a beautiful, unspoilt stretch of white sandy coastline offset by a turquoise sparkling sea, will say, “Right, let’s find some shade.” This, despite the fact that we are in long sleeves, a sun hat, shades, slathered in sunblock and carrying a parasol. In the absence of said shade, we are forced to lie bathed in sweat under a towel, groaning.

Allergies

It’s a glorious summer’s day, but are you able to enjoy it? No, you are not, for the pollen count is dangerously high, and your eyes and nose are streaming so much that, while you can hear the clink of ice in cider glasses (a conceit Brits have adopted entirely uncritically from television advertising), you can hardly see all the beautiful people enjoying themselves around you in the beer garden, unhampered by pintloads of mucus. On top of this, your eyeballs are on fire and you ran out of non-drowsy antihistamines so you’re falling asleep in your seat, possibly for ever, because you heard they don’t mix well with the copious amounts of rosé you convinced yourself you needed to numb the ache in your sinuses.

You dream of spending one of those idyllic summer days pootling along country lanes in a vintage car, only to pull over next to a spectacular cornfield teeming with wildflowers for picnicking, frolicking, etc. But such cinematic moments are sadly denied you, the hayfever sufferer. Quite frankly, you’d rather do the Bez dance through a minefield.

Sweating

“How can it be?” you ask yourself, as you stand in front of the mirror glistening. “Summer is supposed to make everyone infinitely more attractive in preparation for long, lusty, jasmine-scented evenings of seasonal shagging. Instead, I look uglier than I have ever looked. I am actually shining. I am a reflective surface. You could do cocaine off my forehead – only it would stick, like everything else touching any part of my body. I seem to have developed a moustache composed entirely of moisture.”

Sweating is in many ways a form of labour. There’s the cost and annoyance of always having to pack a second T-shirt, the time-consuming act of always having to check the chair after sitting in it, and the humiliation of asking your colleagues whether they have any deodorant. And that’s before you even get to other people’s sweat. Anyone who has taken public transport during rush hour in August will know the unique horror of being penned in on all sides as a man’s forehead drips on to your bare skin like Chinese water torture.

Chafing

For those women without a “thigh gap” (about 95% of us), summer is a time when walking anywhere in extreme heat will see your inner thighs rubbing together like a pair of oiled, wrestling piglets, resulting in “chub rub” – a humiliating condition not unlike nappy rash that results in friction burns and searing pain. Along with thrush, chub rub has to be up there on the list of Bullshit That Women Put Up With™ that only gets worse in summer.

Insect bites

If you’re the kind of person who wakes up in a room you’ve shared with eight other people to find yourself the only one covered in insect bites, then summer is a terrible time for you, my friend. And I feel your pain. I don’t know what it is they love about us (our skin, our blood, our sheer, winsome chemical magnetism), but love us they do, and as a double whammy, we will often suffer from a physical overreaction to said bites. I have had bites bigger than my own face, on my face. Once, on holiday in Greece, I had a bite on my eyelid that made it look as though I had been beaten up, making breakfast in a local taverna very awkward for my boyfriend, who was forced to make a quick exit before becoming the victim of a vigilante justice mob.

I am that person begging Canadian tourists for antihistamines in a hotel lobby, after being told by a Cuban doctor that a pus-filled bite on my thigh meant I could develop encephalitis and die. Try putting a hazy Instagram filter on that.

Fainting

An Italian friend of mine told me recently that his ideal temperature is 38C, a statement the mere hearing of which made me want to go and lie down in a dark room in my pants. Take it from someone who has regained consciousness in the back of a van full of ripped French firemen (they send les pompiers in very tight polo shirts for medical emergencies) and did not enjoy it: there is such a thing as too hot, and for me, that is around the 27C mark. Anything higher will bring on an attack of the vapours. Pathetic, I know, but there we have it. Hot weather turns me into a Victorian lady in need of a six-month convalescence on a chaise longue in a stately home in order to feel strong enough to even think about getting back on my horse.

Bad hair

You know those summer babes, with their beachy, salt-sprayed hair. All they’ve done is gone for a wild swim and run their fingers through their locks afterwards, and yet they look as if they have strolled off the pages of a siren-themed Vogue photoshoot. Meanwhile, the humidity has turned your barnet into a nest of mad frizz, while your now-vertical fringe has developed a multitude of strange kinks. Somehow, the weather has resulted in your having a cowlick, a perm, and a widow’s peak all at once.

Sleeplessness

You toss, and turn, and sweat, and groan as the temperature refuses to drop and the drunks argue loudly outside your open bedroom windows. Somewhere in the room you hear the buzz of a mosquito, but you’re too tired to get up and deal with it, so you cower beneath the sheet in the hope that the thin membrane of fabric will protect you from the inevitable bloodsucking. You’ve tried everything: cold showers, sleeping under a wet towel, naked, buying a cheapo fan from Argos, cotton underpants, but still, the sleep refuses to come. Meanwhile, next to you lies a peaceful summer god or goddess snoring lightly. Amazingly, they are fragrant in their repose, and dry to the touch, and you hate them for it. What dark magic is this?

Booze

You are drunk. You cannot remember a time when you have not been drunk, so long have you been drinking. Everyone else is drinking too, of course, the heat demands it. “Rosé!” someone shouted, around lunchtime, in the beer garden, and a bottle was bought. You drank it, warm, like juice, then moved on to prosecco; fluorescent cocktails with umbrellas in; a can or two of Foster’s. You protected your Pimm’s from a cloud of wasps by sprinting across a croquet lawn, then decided to have another gin and tonic, maybe a cheeky mojito. You feel slightly woozy and restless, you can’t remember the last time you had a drink of water. You think the midges might have got the backs of your calves. You barely slept last night and there’s a heat rash on your shoulders. Sweat pools in your bellybutton; you can feel your nose starting to peel. The hayfever is back. But it’s OK, because you’re pissed. You ignore that nagging feeling and pose for the photographs. When you look at them, later, you see a stranger looking back at you. She is smiling, but there is pain behind her eyes. Her skin is the colour of deli meat. Her hair looks atrocious. This is what summer’s about.