Normal date ideas are great when you’ve been together for a year or two…or when you live inside of a rom com. Dinner and a movie, walks through the park, bringing her flowers and a picnic on her lunch break-these are all great when the romance is new. But for the couple who have made it to three years plus, getting creative with your dates is going to be a must. How many dinners and a movie can you really handle? Oh, another walk in the park? Really? Flowers at work, again!?
To avoid getting stuck in a rut with date night, here are five “extreme” date ideas that will help spice things up. Some of them are as easy as signing up for a class, others are as challenging as jumping out of a plane. But all of these will be great ways to get closer, and will bring your relationship to a whole new level of exciting.
1. Take a Road Trip to Nowhere
If you’re the kind of person who gets super sad when a date is over, the “road trip date” is definitely a good, extreme date choice for you. It’s the date that never ends! Until it finally does, and by that time, you are totally ready for it. Last summer, my fiancée and I drove from Los Angeles to Texas and my first thought was “Oh, yay! I’ll have her all to myself, and trapped in a car, for at least an entire week of driving.” And I did. We spent so much time together that we ran out of things to talk about and began to slowly lose our minds. Driving on back roads in Texas in the middle of the night, reminiscent of every murder documentary ever, we became delusional and invented our own imaginary radio program, in which we were both the radio hosts, and we were both also the guest callers. Romantic, right? Nothing brings you together like having nothing else in the world except the other person. And nothing will make you more motivated to get home and hang out with other people.
2. Take a Couple’s Massage Class
Tired of paying for massages from strangers? Teach the person you have sex with how to do it instead. If you take a massage class together, you can add a lot of relaxation to your lives, and you can bond the awkwardness of the experience. It’s also a great idea because, when you’ve been together a long time, your usual sex moves can get kind of old (sorry, even YOURS, sexy AfterEllen reader). Spice them up by giving her a back rub while you kiss her. Huh?!? Yes?!? Sounds nice!?!? It is. If you want to get really extreme, make it a tantric massage class, a la Sex and the City.
3. Run a Race Together
Nothing shows your level of commitment to someone like running a race together. Whether it’s a marathon (for the extreme couple) or a 5k (for the couple who likes to watch Netflix as much as they like to workout), you’ll discover a lot about your relationship. I once ran a 5k with a girlfriend when we were on the verge of breaking up. As it turned out, the 5k—only 3.1 miles-was what pushed us over the edge into breakup-land. We had planned to run the race together, but that morning, we got into one of our usual fights and we ended up running it alone. As I crossed the finish line by myself, I knew things would never work between us, so I just kept running and until I got home. Then I texted her. That’s how we broke up. Admittedly, it wasn’t the nicest or most mature thing to do. Okay, admittedly, it was a total dick move. But my point is, if you and your girlfriend can cross a finish line together, I have every confidence that you two can go the distance.
4. Take a Fancy Couples Cooking Class Together
Do you wish your girlfriend cooked for you more? Drop an extremely subtle hint by taking her to a couples’ cooking class. It’s romantic to make a stew together with a bunch of other couples, and to whisper things to each other like “our stew is going to be so much more delicious than theirs!” It brings out the competitive nature in you when you pit yourselves against other people who are dating. And competing on the same team can only bring you closer! Afterwards, you get to eat what you made! Then, when you go home, you can be like, “Hey, honey, can you make me a stew?” and she will no longer be able to answer, “I don’t know how,” without lying. All around good for everyone.
5. Couples Skydiving
Listen, I’ve never done this one, so I can’t attest to it, but I’m guessing that plummeting to your potential deaths would be an extreme way to bond with your lady. Couples bungee jumping, cave diving or any other activity with plummeting would have a similar effect. Do you feel like you want to go to the next level of closeness and near-deathness with your boo? Jump out of a plane together and hope for the best. If nothing else, it will definitely give you something to talk about at all of those boring work parties that you have to go to with other couples who think buying a house and having kids together were extreme.
Have ideas for topics you want to hear about? Know a great LTR couple we should interview? Send your cool stuff to [email protected].
