Date Night, Here I Come!

This week, I read an article by Eric Barker on shortcuts to bonding deeply with a romantic partner. So as I do with a lot of interesting things I read, I sent it on to Adam. And then we both had fun realizing that we do a lot of these things already.

But one of the things on the list that we both thought was a great idea was the idea of pretending that we’re on a first date again. No, not in the weird roleplaying way that Claire and Phil do on Modern Family (honestly, whenever they pretend to be Clive and Juliann I get kind of creeped out and don’t want to watch)… but just making an effort and putting your best face forward.

I know from watching The Bachelor that a rush of adrenaline can bond a couple (what, you don’t think that The Bachelor is a credible source of relationship tips?) but it’s been a while since we’ve done something outside our usual. Even when we go out for “date night”, I love going to some of the same places over and over. One of my absolute favorite activities with Adam is just lounging around on the couch watching HGTV in our pajamas, and it’s so easy to make that our default. In fact, I will frequently turn down more elaborate dates in favor of doing just that… oops!

Before we fell in love, Adam and I have been friends for the better part of a decade, and best friends for the last few years… so we kind of skipped the whole first date thing. We basically already knew everything about each other, for better or for worse! I think that’s part of what’s made our relationship move so fast when we finally did start dating. So tonight, I’m on my way to Phoenix for a date night, and I’m really excited to get all dolled up for a night on the town.

Adam has been cooking up a surprise itinerary all week, and I have no idea what’s in store – other than that we only have the babysitter till 10pm, so we’ll go home by then and cuddle up on the couch to watch HGTV with a glass of wine. (Or in my case, fall asleep as soon as I sit down on said couch but then frantically yell out, “No, I’m awake!” whenever Adam asks me a question. Shhhh, don’t tell. It’s been a long week!)

On Sunday morning, I leave for a work trip to Nice, France – followed by a whole bunch of other travel too. As a result, I won’t get to see Adam for a few weeks, which I know is going to be hard. But I thought the evidence in Eric’s post was really compelling around “don’t reduce the negative; increase the positive!” – and so Adam and I are going to try to stop thinking about how long we have to go between dates and visits and instead focus on how amazing it is when we are together.

Long distance really sucks, and it certainly isn’t helped by my work travel that makes me wish I could spend more time at home in Colorado. But life is about choices, and all of my travel lately is for amazing, wonderful reasons that I am so happy about. How great is it that I get to spend the first part of my weekend spending quality time with Adam?! How cool is it that I get to take a business trip to France?! How fun is it that I get to go back to Terranea and have a chance to improve on the job I did presenting last week?! And in between, I get to go visit New York and watch one of my very first post-college friends get married to the woman of his dreams! Life is good, and instead of focusing on the negative, I’d rather accentuate the positive.

TGIF – hope you all have a great weekend 🙂