As the Coronavirus looms and inside time becomes a public duty, couples of all types are struggling to find creative ways to have fun and stay engaged in their relationships. While it sounds difficult to have a successful date night in these uncertain times, we have found several great ideas that are both fun and a great opportunity to strengthen your relationship.

Blind Date – This idea is a great date for couples or families, and gives all of you a chance to increase the element of trust in the relationship.[1] The date starts with one of you being blindfolded in your home. For best results, you can add a few “obstacles” like pulling out a few chairs or placing the odd pillow on the floor, as this can stymy even the most skilled participants. Then, you establish a destination and try to direct your loved one to the goal. During your direction, your loved one has to trust your guidance and believe that you can get them to the goal safely. To make things more intimate, the date can also include a food element, where you can feed your partner portions of a previously prepared dinner, and challenge them to guess what they're being fed, while also trusting that you are feeding them what they love.

Dancing the Night Away – While going to a dance club may be out, connecting with your partner with the intimacy of dance isn’t completely lost. In your relationship, it is incredibly important that you literally and metaphorically ask your partner to dance.[2] For a date night in, there are two choices. For a formal date, consider dimming the lights, and enjoying a few slow dances after dinner. The songs should be familiar, and if possible, it should be music that has been relevant to your relationship. For an informal or family date, consider involving youtube, and finally learning a line dance that gets everyone moving and everyone enjoying the time you have together. What’s important here is not just dancing, but accepting the risk that your partner and you may feel awkward dancing. While just asking your partner to dance may feel risky, that risk is a part of intimacy, and you should always keep asking, and keep offering that bid to connect.

Map Things Out – If you have some paper and a couple of pens, this is a great date night activity that can make a relationship stronger, and maybe inspire some nostalgia. A cross between a road map and a treasure map, the Love Map activity allows you to write out the relationship and see where it all started.[3]  The Love Map starts with drawing (or writing the word for) a landmark or location that each person in the relationship was born. From there, draw a road to the next event or place that began to take you on the road to your partner. Maybe you started having beautiful bangs at a certain salon, and you know your partner loved you hair when you first met. Maybe you went to buy the perfect suit, and your partner always loved that suit when you started dating. Keep drawing or writing those landmark events all the way to the beginning of the relationship. From there, keep adding to the map all the amazing events of your lives together, but remember, just like a real road map, some of those roads may be bumpy with twists and turns, but you don’t need to shy away from adding those imperfect events to the real maps of your lives. As your relationship grows, you can continue adding to the map and giving it scale and direction. 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Dates – In this increasingly digital world, we tend to have fewer and fewer physical photos, which leads to even fewer opportunities to slice the photos up and make a collage. Fortunately, there are several apps and websites, like Shutterfly and Canva, that will allow you to upload your most important digital photos and assemble a collaborative collage of the events that defined your relationship. For this date, you and your partner, or you and the whole family, will sit down together and pull up all the photos that mean the most to you. Using these photos to create a collage can be a tribute to everything you have accomplished to get your relationship to where it is today.[4] Remember that while making this collage, you also have a great opportunity to recognize what events meant the most to you, and what memories may be an opportunity to create a ritual with your family.

Date of the Year – Speaking of ritual creation, there is no better time than right now to create a new ritual with your family. While Holidays come and go, what’s far more important is creating meaningful rituals that inspire connection in your family.[5] For this date, you should take the opportunity to create your own holiday or celebration for your family. For an indoor date ritual, consider celebrating an annual Inside Day, which can be filled with staying inside and eating meals with food inside food, like Toad-in-a-hole (egg inside toast) and a dinner of stuffed peppers or a calzone. You can then watch movies inside a blanket, and later play a game of cards like poker or go fish, where you have to guess what’s going on inside your opponent's head. Whatever you choose to do, the point is to make a ritual that encourages connection.

A Driven Date – While staying inside is the name of the game, there are still ways to be out and feel at home at the same time. On some road trips, it’s not really about the destination, it’s about being together on the open road, and enjoying the time together as you review the passing sights. As Dr. Gottman discusses in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert, sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life, you just have to cherish the drive.[6] For a date, you can simply take a drive to look at the larger than life houses down the road, or just drive around viewing the change of season along the countryside. If you have a handy tablet, you can even bring a movie to enjoy once you park. The goal is to connect during this travel and tune in to each other during the ride. 

Date Night in a Jar – With all these isolated dates, we did want to throw in a date that can be done in or out of the house, but is still a great opportunity to connect. Date Night in a Jar is a fun way to mix things up and it only costs a jar and some paper or Popsicle sticks.[7] The first step is to come up with a list of dates or activities that both of you want to try. The date can be things like trying out a new local restaurant or attending an upcoming event or movie. You then write those ideas on scraps of paper and place them in the jar. Once the next date night comes around, you can pull a random date out of the jar and enjoy some spontaneity. The goal is to introduce a little extra fun in the relationship and celebrate the small things, as they can make the biggest difference in a relationship. 

For more date ideas, we have included some great sources: 

·      Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman, Ph.D., Julie Schwartz Gottman, Ph.D., Doug Abrams, and Rachel Carlton Abrams M.D.

·      https://www.gottman.com/blog/keep-asking-your-partner-to-dance/ 

·      The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman, Ph.D., and Nan Silver.

·      And Baby Makes Three: The Six-Step Plan for Preserving Marital Intimacy and Rekindling Romance After Baby Arrives by John Gottman, Ph.D., and Julie Schwartz Gottman, Ph.D.

·      https://www.gottman.com/blog/weekend-homework-assignment-date-night-in-a-jar/

[1] Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by

John Gottman Ph.D., Julie Schwartz Gottman Ph.D., Doug Abrams, and Rachel Carlton Abrams M.D

[2] https://www.gottman.com/blog/keep-asking-your-partner-to-dance/

[3] The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman Ph.D., and Nan Silver.

[4] Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by

John Gottman, Ph.D., Julie Schwartz Gottman, Ph.D., Doug Abrams, and Rachel Carlton Abrams, M.D.

[5] And Baby Makes Three: The Six-Step Plan for Preserving Marital Intimacy and Rekindling Romance After Baby Arrives

by John Gottman, Ph.D., and Julie Schwartz Gottman, Ph.D.

[6] The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman, Ph.D., and Nan Silver.

[7] https://www.gottman.com/blog/weekend-homework-assignment-date-night-in-a-jar/