Less-known nice/sweet/romantic/fun things to do with your significant other

December 24, 2008 2:27 PM

What are some less known romantic/fun/sweet/cool things to do with/for your significant other? I know the question is somewhat vague, but please see the extended explanation for a few example that I have in mind. More would be great!

(I've seen "It's the little things that count" already but this is a bit different ("less known") and that thread is closed). Here are a few examples I've thought of:

1. Go stargazing. The less-known part: while gazing at the stars, shift your perspective and imagine instead that you are looking down and falling into the star field.

2. But them a small present, say a ring. Pack it in a small crumple of paper. Add about 100 other pieces of crumpled paper into a big box.

3. This one is so silly it's sweet: show up at her door with your hand and wrist bandaged. After she asks what happened, pretend you need the bandage unwrapped. She hopefully will offer to do that, and as she unwraps and you open your fist, a small rose/gift will be revealed.

4. If you have access to a room with skylights, drag a couch where the moonlight will fall at night, and have a makeout session there.

5. Ask the hive mind :) Merry Christmas!

posted by harwons to human relations (6 comments total)

The MeFites helped me with this idea I used last Valentine's Day: come up with a bunch of open ended questions, put on small strips of papers, fold up and put into basket. Light candles, take turns picking out questions and have awesome evening learning new things about your significant other.

PS Your #2 would annoy the shit out of me. YMMV.
posted by CwgrlUp at 3:19 PM on December 24, 2008

Read each other, or trade to read yourselves, short passages of the books that formed your personality.

Make a nice little scrapbook of ephemera from things you've done together- stubs from movies you saw, receipts or bits of menu from places you ate, souvenirs of places you visited, wrappers of candy you both like, etc. A woman I know secretly did this for THREE YEARS, totally unbeknownst to her sweetie- and she publicly presented it to him during her speech on their wedding day! He almost fell over, and he said looking through it later was amazing. It had the dinner receipt, movie tickets, and wrapper from the gummi bears they shared on their first date, and he had no idea she'd kept any of it!

Give her some nicely-presented (booklet, artwork, whatever) quotes excerpted from your journal, or from emails you wrote to your friends, telling them all the nice things you told them about your partner during the early days of your courtship.

Write goofy songs together.

Talk into each others' mouths while you kiss. It sounds so funny. You can also inhale deeply with your mouth over theirs- if they relax their voicebox while you do it, you can make them sing and yodel by using your mouth to pull air out of their lungs and over their own vocal chords.

Set up a trail of clues through your house, or even through the city! You can use things like mall lockers, or notes stuck to the backs of building signs or inconspicuously tied to trees & landmarks and stuff. A friend did a citywide trail of notes leading his girlfriend all over the city on his motorcycle (she'd try to decipher the clue and he'd drive them to the next location), and at the end, the last clue led her to his pocket, where she found a small box... and he took it back from her, knelt, and proposed.

Infiltrate! I've never tried this, but I have friends who swear by it. It's apparently easy to sneak into (safe) construction sites, or around office buildings after-hours, or get locked into malls & movie theatres & university buildings and hotels and stuff like that. There are great tips on that site for how to avoid getting caught and how to behave if you are-- "Hi Mr. Security Guard! Uh, sorry to bug you, but is there a washroom around here?" There's probably a public pool near you that you can sneak into after-hours, too. As long as you're polite and not intoxicated and not doing anything really dumb, criminal, or dangerous (ie, vandalizing, stealing, etc), if you get caught you'll just be shoo'ed out.

Volunteer to walk dogs at the animal shelter.

Go shopping together for easy-to-carry, universally-palatable food (granola bars, cans of juice, etc) or scarves & mitts from the dollar store, and give it to homeless people. Or buy them a hot meal- pretty much everyone likes coffee with a burger & fries!

Go looking at condos & open houses together- no pressure about moving in or anything, but just to see.

Sit on the roof and watch airplanes. Tell each other stories about people on the airplanes.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 4:20 PM on December 24, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Maybe this isn't what you're looking for, but when Mr. Llama does little things for me without saying anything about them, that show that he notices little obscure bits and cares about them, it makes me feel special.

I love it when he fills up the windshield wiper fluid in my car, or picks up white wine (which he hates and I like), or buys me a new toothbrush because mine is getting kind of crappy. I know these sound so boring but it's really, really nice when you feel like someone is looking after your comforts, taking note of it when they know something is probably bugging the crap out of you, and then taking action to fix it, and not making a big deal of it or standing around waiting for a round of applause. He never says anything about it, and I know sometimes I don't even notice he did it -- when I do notice, I'm always so happy and let him know, and I try to do things like that for him, because it's nice to know someone's looking out for you in the world and noticing your pet peeves and adding the dimmers to the light switches because they know you hate glare, and cleaning the bathroom because they know you're a happier person with a non-penitentiary aesthetic. Etc.

I guess what I'm saying is: I think the best sweet/nice/romantic stuff has to do with feeling your partner notices you, really notices you, and is paying attention to you on a deep level. A lot of relationships are about phoning it in. When someone really pays attention to you -- it's awesome.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:23 PM on December 24, 2008 [13 favorites has favorites]

My husband and I had a Christmas tradition where we'd go together to Walgreens on Christmas Eve and buy each other a gift that cost ten dollars or less. It was fun running around finding a gift, and it was also fun trying to avoid the other person so they wouldn't see their present.

We love taking long walks, and bringing our cameras to take pictures.

Seconding the scrapbook idea. My husband and I are too lazy to scrapbook, but he keeps a box with things in it, and it's fun to look back through it.
posted by christinetheslp at 5:58 PM on December 24, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Set up a date in a really crowded and large place, like a mall, or Grand Central, but don't specify any spot. Try to find each other within one hour, and have cellphones handy in case you fail.
posted by harwons at 6:24 PM on December 24, 2008

Go to Goodwill or St Vinnie's together. The rules are you have $20 each to pick out a complete outfit for each other. Take her on a fancy date with your new duds.
posted by jpdoane at 7:37 AM on December 26, 2008