Monday, June 16, 2014

A Year of Dates

My To-Do List of Dates

How all couples should meet
For quite some time now I've run into this problem. What to do on the date upon which I'm about to embark? Now dates can be simple, complex, long, or short, but they all have one thing in common. Two people going out in order to get to know each other better. Whether you've been on one date or a million, this is always important. All too often, I run into the trap of, "What do ya wanna do?" "I don't know whadda you wanna do? "I don't know...let's do something!"



So, in hopes of avoiding the dreaded trap, I have compiled my rather lengthy list of date ideas. This is the 'bucket list' of dates, I want to do all of these someday. My goal in coming up with the ideas was simple, fun, and inexpensive. Now, this has been tailored to those who live in the Salt Lake area, but you can easily adapt the specific places I've mentioned (Asylum 49 for your fav local haunted house for example) and you'll have more dates than you can sneeze at. Without further ado, here they are!

1. Picnic in the park
2. Walk Gateway mall and run through the fountain
3. Try all the frozen yogurt stores nearby and pick a favorite.
4. Sneak into Lagoon using the resident pass just to ride the Superman. (My name for the one that drops you from 400 feet in a huge swing.)
5. Explore that old, creepy barn. At night. And take pictures.
6. Make out in the middle of the mall.
7. Each of you compile a CD of fav songs and then listen to them together.
8. Go to library together and pick out a book for the other person to read.
9. Climb to flag on mountain.
10. Go hot-tubbing, preferably somewhere you're not supposed to, like a hotel you didn't check in at.
11. Go waterskiing.
12. Weekend trip to Yellowstone or Jackson Hole or wherever you can get in 8 hrs of driving.
13. Go to a store, pick out outfits for each other, try them on. Laugh.
14. Try out the Twilight Concert Series in Salt Lake, just to laugh at the bands.
15. Write a short story one evening, switching off each paragraph with the other person.
16. Quiet dinner and movie at the house, but don't really watch the movie.
17. Sneak into the others workplace and kidnap them for 5 minutes to kiss in a closet.
18. Film a Vine together.
19. Walk around the downtown and take pictures of the graffiti.
20. Take the other person to your place of work and show them off.
21. Play video games.
22. Make a ridiculous music video together.
23. Go apartment shopping, even if neither of you has any interest in moving.
24. Try that crazy dance club.
25. Go to a bar with live music and order super fruity drinks.
26. Pretty much any excuse to kiss, hold hands, or make out. Find the excuses.
27. Make costumes together.
28. TP one of your arch-enemies houses.
29. Spend the evening looking up how to say, "I love you" in 20 different languages.
30. Have a nerf-gun fight. Or water balloon fight.
31. Go swimming. Preferably where neither of you have been.
32. Speaking of that, go wading in the Tempe square reflecting pool.
33. Go to Idaho just to go horseback riding.
34. Trampoline park anyone?
35. Paintball with friends, but ditch the friends on the way home.
36. Sneak into a theatre just to hold impromptu performances for each other.
37. Make your fav dinner for them.
38. Get some friends and a large, dark building and play sardines. (Reverse of hide-and-go seek. One person hides, everyone goes to find them and once you find them, you hide with them.)
39. Camping.
40. Show up unexpectedly at the other persons house with a random gift, stay only 10 minutes but kiss the whole time.
41. Climb to the top of a random skyscraper just to see what's up there.
42. Give each other a foot massage.
43. Go ice-blocking.
44. Climb a tree.
45. Organize a movie outside.
46. Go sledding.
47. Build an igloo and have a picnic.
48. Go on a hike.
49. Go to Nicklemania (or other and spend the whole time playing 2 person games, or challenging the other person, or just having fun.
50. Fid the weirdest restaurant you can and eat there.
51. Find the closest cheap concert and go, no matter the band.
52. Go to a museum, imitate the displays and take pictures.
53. Explore a big old, or big new library.
54. Find a farmer's market and pretend to be an old Russian married couple. Confuse the heck out of everyone you meet.
55. Go rock-climbing.
56. Find a weird TV show on Netflix and watch an episode. Write a review online.
57. Find a really old, dumb movie and riff-trax it. (As in, heckle.)
58. Go through a haunted house just to hang on tight to each other. (Asylum 49, Castle of Chaos, Fear Factory, or the best one, Nightmare on 13th)
59. Make up a dance routine to your song together, pretend you're on Dancing With the Stars.
60. Karaoke night.
61. Take a horse-carriage ride.

There, more than a year's worth of ideas, even if you do more than one a week on occasion. Dating is important, whether you're brand-new to the scene or married 50 years. The worst thing you can do is get stuck in a rut. I once dated a guy that only wanted to sit on his couch and stare at the wall while he fell asleep. AFTER I'd driven to his house, at his request, because..... he didn't have any ideas? Still confused as to why I did that. Needless to say, Mr. Boring didn't last long in the romantic scene of my life.

Have some give and take, but don't say no to something just because it seems weird or hard or you've never done it before. Try that sushi, you may even like it. At the very least you'll say, "Well, I'm doing something that I didn't do yesterday." That's what life's really about, finding the adventure. Have fun dating! And whatever you do, don't feed the homeless on 400 South, they bite.

2 comments:

  1. It sounds like kissing is a big part of what you view is a perfect date.. lol

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  2. Going back and reading over this, I'm amazed by how much kissing figures into these things. Ah well, what do YOU do on dates anyway?

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