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With life almost edging closer to normal than it has been in recent years, many of us are once again packing our schedules full — often with little space left for quality time with our partners. With countless studies proving, again and again, the benefits of making time for your partner, including bettering your communication and helping you both de-stress, it really is worth reassessing your routine and carving out time for it.
We’ve come up with some fun date night ideas you can do — all without having to leave your lounge room. From setting up your own ‘dining in the dark’ experience, to getting to know each other better through a night of quizzes, here are some of the most creative ways you can spend time together at home.
Eat Dinner in the Dark
Bear with me here, as it is an, um, out-there date night idea. But just as you can pay lots of money to do at an official event, dining in the dark can also be recreated in your own home.
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Here’s how it would work: one of you would need to do all the cooking, as one of the key parts of it is that you don’t know what you’re eating. To make it fair, the next time you do it, the other person would have to take over in the kitchen.
When all the food is ready to go, you’d plate it up and then turn off the lights to eat it in the dark. And who knows, you may even feel more comfortable in the pitch-black talking about things you maybe wouldn’t have otherwise.
Create a Spa Night
For a date night where you can just spend time together and don’t have to talk a lot — which you sometimes just need at the end of a hectic week — create an at-home spa night. Bundle into robes, light some candles and put on a soothing playlist. Then, you can either pamper yourselves on your own, or book a spa therapist to come to your home.
Blys do an at-home couples massage, which’ll see two therapists bringing beds, towels and oils to set up in your home, and then massaging you both at the same time (or one after the other, if you’ve opted for a single therapist).
Take an Online Cooking Class
When it comes to cooking classes, there’s so much free or affordable content online, so there’s no reason you need to leave the house to do one. Look at Udemy, MasterClass or plain ol’ YouTube.
Pick the class or, if you’re ambitious, course, you’re going to do beforehand, so you can get everything you’ll need for it at the shops. Then, on date night, slip on some aprons, cue the tunes and follow along. Bonus: you’ll get dinner out of it, too.
Play a Quiz Night
This date night idea isn’t about showing off your trivia skills, it’s about getting to know each other better. ‘Quiz night’ can be in the form of Truth or Dare, Would You Rather or your own quiz of questions you’ve always to ask your partner. For the last option, put together a list of getting-to-know-you, first date questions, and then write your partners’ answers for each.
Once you’ve done that, swap pages and go over each answer together, seeing how well they do know you. Other options include Never Have I Ever, Twister or a card game with sips of drink weaved into the rules.
Go Stargazing
This date night idea does require you to leave the house, but you can leave all your loungewear on and simply add a coat. Grab a picnic blanket from home, and either drive or walk to your nearest park.
There, lay out the blanket and kick back on it, holding hands and gazing up the stars. Taking the time to recognise how tiny we are in the grand scheme of the universe puts everything in perspective and may curb any future fights.
Scroll down for some our top picks to help create that at-home date night experience.
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