Reverse Date Night -- A Counter-Habitual Intimacy Hack for Couples Looking to Optimize Connection

If you're not careful, date night can start to feel, well, kind of boring. 

Here's why. 

This modern relationship ritual is an attempt to merge the spontaneous experience of love with the overly-scheduled reality of family life.

It's romance meets Google Calendar, intimacy meets email. 

And in this tug-of-war between love and logistics, the perfectly-planned-out and domesticated side of life usually wins.

This is why you might end up doing the same things, going to the same restaurants, or rehearsing the same set of life logistics during each date night.

So what are you to do?

Is there a way to save date night?

Try this date night hack

Call us naive. Call us crazy. But we believe in date night (or we at least believe in dates). We think it's possible to rescue this essential relationship ritual from the daily onslaught of texts, life drama, and busyness. 

But there's a catch.

If you want to infuse this ritual with novelty, you're going to have to do something different. You're going to have to cut against the grain of your ordinary habits.

Enter what we call Reverse Date Night.

Here's the basic idea. For your next date night, reverse all of your ordinary habits.

If you always drive, walk. 

If you always eat out, order in.

If you always go to a movie, go to a concert.

If you always do it at night, do it during the day.

If you always spend lavishly, reduce your total budget to $50.

The goal is to design a date night that is the exact opposite of your default habits.

We did this the other night and had a blast. We took the city bus downtown instead of driving. We ate at a brand new restaurant instead of our favorite sushi place. We tried new entrees. We ordered strange cocktails with ingredients we didn't recognize. We walked a different route home.

Doing everything differently felt novel and fresh.

Try it out with your partner and let us know what you end up doing for your Reverse Date Night.