Date Night

If you’ve been following me here, you know that I read lots of those Internet articles and magazine features on relationship flaws, successes, and pitfalls. Love ‘em!

One recurring theme is that you have to keep a relationship fresh. Yeah. After 30+ years of marriage. Yeah. Got it! Does a different lunch menu every day count? Well, it might for some.

You see, DH made his own lunch for decades. He packed a luncheon meat turkey sandwich, chips, grapes, and a couple of cookies. When he retired, and thus was home for lunch, I told him to get over it. We weren’t going to eat sandwiches every day, with or without processed meat. If he didn’t like it, he could continue to make his own lunch. He ceded to me. Now we’ll have soup or quiche or taco salad or something else. Never the same lunch twice in a row. BORING! So that ought to count for keeping the relationship vital, fresh. Right?

I’ve never seen lunch variety in the list of how to keep love alive, but, hey, why not? There are so many ways to show love. The way to a man’s heart blah blah blah.

Oh, I do other stuff, too. No showing up in Saran Wrap at the door (not the way this body has spread out all over God’s green Earth), but I do keep it snappy in other ways. Like putting in a mysterious notation in his appointment book. (On the patio, 6:30) Or sending him a “just because” card from Bluemountain.com.

 But I think the most successful way of reconnecting is our date nights. We don’t have it regularly scheduled like some do, which means some weeks we have two date nights and some months we only have two date nights. That doesn’t seem to matter.

I think date nights are successful for a few of reasons:

1)   We plan them together so there is time spent in anticipation as well as the time together on date night.

2)   Date nights encourage best behaviors. We would never argue on date night. It’s light, bright, and happy.

3)   Date nights get us to try new venues, experiences, and therefore create new topics of conversation.

4)   We dress differently so we think differently. Clothes do add a dimension to an experience whether fancy dress for the opera or swim suits for scuba diving.

5)   And “date nights” don’t have to be at night to count as a date!

As a teen, anticipating dating and looking at my parents’ times together, I wondered how in the world I could sustain conversation for the several hours a date lasted, never mind years and years of marriage. Whatever could one find to talk about after so much time together? Don’t you just love how concrete and naïve young daters are?

Conversation is not at all a problem, I discovered, with the right guy at the right time. Date night or not, time with my fella is a treasure I value over all else. But I do love date nights.