So, my relationship started 3rd grade this fall.
this is your life on LTR: the place where adorable meets terrifying.
Many people would consider the mere feat of our “being together” an incredible accomplishment for both of us, and they’re not wrong. However, as anyone in a long-term-relationship knows, sometimes being together is the easy part.
After 8 years, there’s little that we do alone. Whether we’re out to dinner, buying dog food, or binging on Netflix — my trusty plus one is always along for the ride.
Obviously, there are definite advantages to being in a relationship. I never have to worry about who to take to a wedding. There’s always someone around to drive me to the hospital in the case of an injury or debilitating illness. The heavy stuff in my house gets moved and the up-high stuff gets lowered. I get to spend every single day hanging out with my best friend.
It’s that last bit that can get a little tricky.
I love my partner. He rocks. He is the single most amazing, caring, funny, exciting, and all-around beautiful person that I have ever known. He’s also easily distracted, terrible at folding, and perfectly happy spending an entire weekend on the couch. By now, we’ve heard all each others’ stories (a few times over), cooked countless dinners together, and made it at least halfway through the internet on YouTube videos alone. At a certain point, we stopped “dating” and started “being together.” I don’t know when it happened, but I woke up one day and I just knew that it had. Maybe it was the laundry piled on the floor, or our 700th trip to IKEA, or that month where we watched every episode of The X-Files back-to-back (for the second time). Maybe it’s just what happens when you hit your 50,000th hour with someone.
I’ve heard telepathy kicks in around 200,000.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining. I have found my person and there’s a lot to be said for that. We belong to each other in a way that no one else does, and most of the time I am perfectly happy just sitting together in silence or having our big outing of the week be a trip across the street to get FroYo. On the other hand, I think that getting comfortable in that knowledge can lead to a kind of mutual-neglect that has no place in a healthy relationship.
Also, boring. Who likes boring? Boring people, that’s who.
I don’t want to under-appreciate or under-value my relationship because I’m happy with FroYo (pure insanity), and I don’t want the single people out there soaking up all the fun either. They already have inside jokes, and apps, and clubs, and probably a bunch of other cool-single-people-stuff that I don’t even know about because I like to cuddle and bake on weekends.
So, in order to combat the dreaded affliction known as couples’ coma, I came up with the idea of datebox.
In its most basic form, it’s an ongoing list of date ideas that I compiled by category: cheap, late-night, weekend, weird, etc. I’ve also created a more concrete datebox “system” for our home (pending DIY on this, as it’s currently being beta tested).
I hope that this blog will help inspire other couples to get off the couch and do something, or at least serve as a sort of date-idea-test-market for those who are looking to shake things up and do something a different together. The sitcom always loses its spark when the couple gets together, and I think there’s something terribly sad about that. Couples aren’t the end of entertainment, but maybe we could stand to get a little more creative! After all, we’re in love! Isn’t that awesome?
Hopefully the process will bring us even closer together. Even if it doesn’t, our couch could sure use a rest!
Do you have any date tips (and/or) stories of your own experience with couples’ coma? I’d love to hear them!
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datebox 