Inside: How to Break the Date Night Routine: 5 Strategies for Trying New and Exciting Activities. Collaborative post.
Spending time with your partner is the best, but it can eventually become routine. Picking from the same handful of date ideas every week gets boring. Break the routine by using these strategies to come up with different ideas. You’ll enjoy new and exciting activities together to make date night feel fresh again.
1. Embrace Learning Together
After catching up on the latest movie or TV show together, ask your partner if they want to do something different. Instead of watching people do things on your screen, why not learn how to do them together?
First, think about why you each want to learn something new. If you love helping people like your partner or friends, an opportunity like a cooking class could indulge that desire. You’ll discover ways to craft different recipes with tools you’ve never used. While you participate in a class together, your partner might enjoy the lessons because they love the science or creativity of cooking. It depends on their interests and motivation to learn.
Tours are another great way to educate yourselves while doing something fun. You could learn how your favorite beer brand makes their product with a brewery tour. Or, listen to experts discuss how they make wine during a Friday night spent at a winery.
Historic venues reveal things about the past that might fascinate you and your partner. Start your journey by naming topics you’ve been excited to learn about in the past. Ask yourself why those things excited you. You’ll find new date ideas quickly after pinpointing the answers to those questions.
2. Make Exercise Fun
Many couples work out together. It’s an exciting way to explore your shared passion for fitness and feel confident in yourself. When you want to do something other than go to the gym, ask how exercise could become your new adventure.
A local park might offer rental paddle boats for anyone wanting to explore their pond. See if a high ropes course is nearby where you can scale an airborne obstacle course and sharpen your teamwork skills.
Sunny afternoons are also perfect opportunities for renting a tandem bike and giggling over how to make it work. If you can’t figure it out, rollerblade your way through your city’s downtown streets and stop for some ice cream.
Exercising can still be the foundation of your hobbies, but it doesn’t have to limit you to a gym. These exciting activities will make your date night routine more fun if you want to try something new.
3. Give Back Together
People often think of date night as a quiet time to be alone. Although that can be nice, it limits what your routine could become. Shift your focus outward by finding ways to volunteer on your next free morning or afternoon.
Match your passions to your efforts by lending a helping hand at an animal shelter, retirement home, veteran’s office or community garden. Ask your friends and family if there’s anything you can do to help them. Even if you drive your lawn mower over to your grandparent’s house to make life easier for them, you’ll both enjoy making the world a better place together.
It could also inspire your future adventures. Devoted volunteers plan vacations around their volunteer plans. You could visit places like Hawaii or the U.K. by joining teams doing work like forest restoration, coastal cleanup, or farming. Look into national or international groups that coordinate volunteers if the idea of a date vacation interests you.
4. Reconsider Your Nevers
The next time you and your partner sit down for a meal, talk about things you would never do. These won’t be the activities that are too extreme. Instead, name something you wouldn’t do alone but might enjoy together.
Pushing yourself and your partner outside of your comfort zones will make for an exhilarating date night. You could go skydiving or scuba diving. Test your fears by trying out at your community theater, singing in a talent show or riding dirt bikes over dunes at the beach.
Or how about booking an event that you need to get dressed up and go all out? Maybe an exclusive restaurant or an exclusive event. This way, you could both invest in fashionable evening wear for every season so you can both get dressed up and enjoy a night out in your finery and push yourself into new environments and situations.
You might discover something new to love by embracing the unknown together.
5. Indulge Your Competitive Natures
Do you and your partner share a love of competition? Turn your next date night into a friendly contest. You could compete in a local trivia night event, enter a talent competition, run a 5k race or scramble to outwit each other in a player-versus-player game.
When that gets old, turn your competitive spirits outward. Team up to win against other players or teams in the same scenarios. You’ll have a blast at home or out in town during date night. You might even meet a few friends with the same love of competing.
Make Date Night More Exciting
Break your date night routine by changing how you plan your dates. These five strategies will give you new perspectives for your time alone. See if any of these exciting activities would make your weeks more fun. You’ll never feel bored about your possibilities again.