Very few couples go out on dates every single night of the week. Maybe you’ve got young children at home or you’re low on cash, so you’re spending almost all of your nights together at home. Even if you don’t have things like kids or money problems keeping you at home, you might just prefer staying in. Sometimes you’re just too tired from a rough day at work to go out. Just because you’re not leaving the house doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy your time together. You can have a date at home, as long as you make a bit of an effort to keep things truly date-like.
The first key to a successful night in is doing a little advance planning. That doesn’t mean you have to decide what you want to do several days in advance, of course. It just means that, once you know you’re not going to go out, you should figure out what you want to do at home. Check in with your S.O. before you head home from work. A quick ten minute phone call can allow you to decide what you want to do, that way you can pick up anything you’ll need before you get home (i.e. groceries for a special dinner, a movie to watch, etc.). More importantly, planning ahead will prevent you from getting home and settling into your same old routine. If you wait until you’ve gotten home, plopped onto the couch, and turned on the TV before you discuss your plans, it’s likely your at-home date night will never get started. You wouldn’t plan a date out five minutes before it happens, so you should treat date night at home in the same way.
When you and your partner decide what you’ll be doing for your date in, you should make sure to get a little creative. If you’re going to have dinner, make a meal that you love but don’t cook too regularly. Having the same soup and sandwich combo you had two nights before won’t feel like a date. It will just feel like another typical weeknight at home. If you both like to cook, make dinner together. That way, even the meal prep becomes a part of your date. If a normal night in involves watching TV together or reading in bed until you fall asleep, shake things up. Drink a cocktail or two while you play cards and trade flirty quips. It’s like going to the casino minus the possible loss of money. As a bonus, if you decide to play strip poker, there aren’t any security guards there to stop you. If you decide to go the movie watching route, turn your home into your own mini theater. Turn off all the lights, pop some popcorn or set up a candy bowl, and settle in side by side on the couch. Trade in movie-theater-style soda for a more adult beverage, and feel free to make out on the loveseat during the slow parts of the film.
Of course, having a good plan doesn’t count for anything if the atmosphere at home is all wrong. Just because you’re in your house, that doesn’t mean you should change into your comfy pajamas for movie night. Act as though you’re out on the town. Stay dressed in your work clothes or put on something nice that you’d wear out on a date. Sit at the table for dinner, not on your couch. Most importantly, shut out any possible sources of interruption. Set your cell phones on silent and put them in the other room, put the computer to sleep, and do your best to minimize interruptions from your kids and/or pets. If you’ve got cats or dogs, feed them right when you get home so you won’t have to drop everything later to get them their dinner. The same thing goes for the kiddos. Get the children fed and wait until they’re in bed to have your date night. Better still, if your parents or your partner’s parents live nearby, ask them if the kids can spend the evening with them. They get to have fun at their grandparents’, and you and your S.O. get a quality night in. Of course, that will take a little more advance planning, since you can’t just spring your children on your in-laws with no warning.
The key to a truly great night in is to break away from your typical evening routine and treat your house like it’s your favorite hotspot. It takes a little bit of planning, but the payoff is huge. Besides, it’s a lot easier to drop everything mid-date and head into the bedroom if the bedroom is just down the hall. What’s not to like about that?
Anyone who has read Emma or seen its modern day movie counterpart, Clueless, is all too aware that well-meaning matchmakers’ plans can go horribly awry. Sometimes, however, they can be quite successful. Our closest friends can often see qualities in ourselves that we cannot. Sometimes an outside party is better at knowing what type of person we’d be happy with than we are, simply because we’re blinded by what we think would be best for us. So when your friend offers to fix you up, you shouldn’t immediately turn him or her down. Of course, you shouldn’t blindly accept that friend’s offer, either. You need to contemplate just how well this friend really knows you, and then ask them some important questions about the person they’re hoping to match with you.
It’s important to asses your friendship with this matchmaker before you say yes or no to them. Is this person someone you consider to be a close friend, or a casual acquaintance? You need to be certain that your friend is someone who knows you really well. If they don’t, they could be setting you up with someone who is seriously mismatched with you. That doesn’t mean that your friend has to be someone who has known you since you were little kids. It just means that you should only let a friend find you a date if they’re truly close to you. If this friend isn’t the type of person you regularly confide in, they don’t know you well enough to successfully match you with someone.
Once you’ve deemed your friend a worthy matchmaker, you should make sure to ask them some smart questions about the potential date they’ve found for you. How long has your friend known this person, and how did they meet each other? What qualities does this guy or girl have that your friend feels makes them a good match for you? Do they know anything about this potential match’s past dating life? If you don’t like their answers, or if they don’t seem to know enough to give you an answer, it’s time to think twice. You should really only allow yourself to be matched up with someone that your friend knows well. They don’t necessarily need to know your potential date as well as they know you, but they shouldn’t be casual acquaintances, either. It’s fairly questionable if they can’t tell you at least a little bit of their dating history. It’s even worse if they seem to gloss over it. That could mean they’re hiding a promiscuous or unsavory past that they know you’d disapprove of. Your friend should at least be able to tell you if this potential date has had a girlfriend or boyfriend or two within the last couple of years.
If you’re certain that your friend is a trustworthy confidant, and you’re satisfied with the answers to you questions, move forward with the date. If you’re open to a full-on blind date, make sure to meet them at a public place. Have an excuse to leave ready, just in case the date bombs. If you’re too uncomfortable to jump into a blind date, ask your friend to help you set up a meeting in a group setting. Throw a small party or dinner at your place and have your friend bring Mr. or Ms. Match along. If that doesn’t work for you, suggest a night out with a small group of friends. Just make sure that you all go somewhere where you can talk, otherwise you won’t really get to know the person. Also, try to keep the amount of people involved small enough to feel intimate, but not so small that it’s awkward. If only you, your friend, and the possible match go out, it will feel weird and contrived. If there are more than six to eight people, though, you won’t get very much one-on-one time to talk.
No matter how you meet the potential date, make sure to give your friend feedback afterwards. Be honest, otherwise they might keep trying to match you up with the wrong kind of guy or girl. If the match doesn’t go well, you can also feel free not to use this friend for matchmaking purposes again. They won’t be hurt if they really care about you.
In our busy, modern world, it can be surprisingly difficult to meet the “The One.” Frankly, it can be pretty difficult to meet someone worth a second date. Yet many people manage to find their great loves, which is proof enough that it can be done. What if you’re having a rough patch, though? Instead of assuming that there’s something wrong with you, you might want to start questioning the places where you’ve been trying to meet potential dates. Certain kinds of people frequent certain kinds of places. If you’ve been meeting the wrong kind of person over and over, you’re probably looking for love quite literally in all the wrong places.
There are a handful of common places that people meet new love interests; school, work and bars or clubs are the most typical locations. School makes sense if you’re lucky enough to find your true love early on. If you’re both in the same major at college, or join the same club or organization, you’re bound to have common interests and lots to talk about. The workplace creates a similar environment, wherein lots of people with common work interests are together day after day. As long as you’re not breaking any company rules, it’s a pretty sensible place to meet someone. Bars and clubs can be a bit more troubling, though. If you’re looking for a simple hook up, meeting someone at a bar or dance club makes sense. The drinks are flowing, the vibe is fun, and lots of singles go out with their friends looking to meet people. However, these aren’t the kinds of places where you can have a good conversation or really get to know someone. It’s also hard to tell if you’re being sized up as a one night stand or not. Furthermore, if you’re going to the wrong type of bar or club, you’re probably meeting people with whom you aren’t ultimately compatible. If you want to make a serious connection, get out of the bars and go to places that speak to your interests.
There’s a surprising logic to figuring out where your search should begin. Are you a bookworm? Try the library or a book store. Do you love being outdoors? Head over to the park. If you’re not comfortable striking up a conversation with an attractive stranger while browsing through novels, don’t fret. Instead, look for activities that will help you meet others. The library or book store may have a book club night you can join. Your local park probably hosts all sorts of adult sports leagues that you could sign up to play in, along with groups for runners, walkers, and more. In a way, this allows you to recreate the environment you had in school. You’re thrown into a group with a lot of strangers who have common interests, not unlike when you take a class in college. Thanks to the internet, you can find all sorts of clubs and associations for grown-ups. Best of all, you’ll enjoy the bonus of making a lot of new friends. Volunteering is another great way to meet a potential romantic partner. If you love animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you like to garden, volunteer to help out with clean up and gardening at the park or another public green space. You’ll be sure to meet like-minded volunteers, and you’ll have the added benefit of making a good first impression through the good deeds you’re doing.
In addition to seeking out places and activities related to your interests, you might be surprised at how much potential everyday places can have. When you’re at the grocery store or waiting on line at the post office, don’t let the drudgery get in the way of a potential match. It can be easy to zone in on the task at hand and miss an opportunity to meet someone, so try being more aware of who all is around you. Next time you’re at the laundromat, head over to the available washer beside your cute neighbor and strike up a conversation. People are more likely to be themselves in everyday situations like these. In a bar, everyone is putting on airs, attempting to attract others, but when you’re on line at the supermarket, no one’s trying too hard. Another bonus of all of these places and situations, from heading to the library to volunteering at the animal shelter, is that there isn’t drinking involved. Beer goggles and bad, drunken decisions happen at bars or clubs, not when you’re doing your laundry or working out with your local Road Runners chapter. You’re much more likely to make a true love connection in situations like these.
