You all know how much I love my routines. How they have formed so many important friendships (French toast with Mary every Wednesday morning since freshman year; wings/nachos/half-price burgers with the That’s-What-She-Saiders). How they keep me sane (my obsession with having a regular workout schedule). How they give me something to look forward to. All of these play a pretty huge role in my life as far as keeping me on the other side of the fence from dysfunctional.
One of my routines, though, has been getting me a decent amount of good-natured ridicule lately: Wednesday night date night.
My friends have mostly gotten used to the fact that I am never available on Wednesday nights. In fact, now that they are starting to date more, too, Wednesday night has pretty much become date night for everyone. Which is, of course, hilarious, given the months they’ve spent saying, “Every week?! Come on now,” and the months I’ve laughed back, “Gotta keep the fire alive, man.”
It’s a little upsetting that I have to schedule a regular date night into my week if I ever want to see my man. (Thus my plea for help de-nutsing my life.) But I got the inspiration from my parents, who are still together, and more than that, are still happy together after 25+ years of marriage. They’ve tried to schedule a weekly date night every week for twenty-five years. Wrap your mind around that, y'all. Especially in between kids, school, church, multiple jobs, moving, grad school, no jobs, moving… If they didn’t schedule time to “be in love” one night of every week, they wouldn’t have time for it. That’s the sad part, if you ask me. But it’s also indispensable. That's the way our lives are these days, in this culture. We don't have time to be in love, or even to get a grasp on what that means in the first place.
To get a slightly different angle on the topic, let’s take a jaunt back to my sophomore year of college, when I was a free agent and just figuring out what that meant. I met a guy named Tim at a pillow fight planned by one of the theater groups on campus, of which he was a part. He was interesting, and he thought I was interesting, and we ran into each other at the silverware station in the caf a few weeks later and I don’t remember quite what happened, but we made plans to hang out.
Regardless of how it all went down, we got together a few times just to talk. New friends-like. And then it was the end of the semester and we decided to go to late night breakfast together (St. Olaf’s best finals week tradition, in my opinion) and in our Facebook thread he said, “It’s a date.” And I freaked.
“I guess I should clarify,” he wrote back. “I’m defining ‘date’ as two adults spending time explicitly with each other in order to determine whether they are romantically compatible or if they’re better off just being friends.”
That definition changed my life.
Before Tim, the moment I agreed to go on a date was the moment I signed your freedom and singlehood away forever. Now? It’s time I set aside to spend with a specific person and to focus on our relationship. I do usually see Jason more than just on Wednesdays, but that’s the night we always know for sure we’re going to spend with just us. That consistency is super important. Especially since quality time is my top love language. You can tell I like you if I want to spend time with you. Pretty simple.
(Incidentally, it just occurred to me that my sister tells me she cares about me by sending me photo messages of things I said I wanted to buy, and telling me how much they cost in different stores or states. She also gives me hugs and says cute things, but I like figuring out the subtle ways we say that stuff to each other. That's love iRL.) (...in Real Life.)
On top of being a check-in point and a time to keep the fire burning, Wednesday night date night also forces us to come up with new and interesting things to do, to keep from getting complacent. This summer our Wednesday dates have got me to see The Italian Job and the Italian Festival, both of which I liked a lot; we’ve gone swimming; we’ve gone for sushi and beer and fro-yo; we’ve hit the mall and HIMYM; we saw Avengers, Rock of Ages, Wanderlust, and The Hunger Games; we went to the Delaware Shakespeare Festival to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he bought me my first ever Philly cheesesteak at Tony Luke's; and last night, we went to World Café Live at the Queen for their Grilled Cheese & Craft Beer Night. (The winning round, in my opinion was the Brooklyn Blast IPA and a swiss cheese with house-made duck pastrami on rye bread. A close second grilled cheese was the manchego with jerk chicken on caramelized plantain bread, and the second place beer was Victory Yakima Glory. Although now I'm second-guessing myself. Everything was SO, so good.)
Lots of delicious, hilarious, active, important, interesting things that we do together, sharing our old interests and stumbling upon new ones. I would like to be able to use any and all of those adjectives to describe my relationship overall, as well as the individual dates.
To top it all off, we were walking off the four to-die-for grilled cheeses and the peach cake and all the mind-blowing beers (I won’t tell you how many there were) up and down Market Street when a guy approaching us called out, “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see a cute couple walking out here.”
Keepin’ the fire alive, man.
One of my routines, though, has been getting me a decent amount of good-natured ridicule lately: Wednesday night date night.
My friends have mostly gotten used to the fact that I am never available on Wednesday nights. In fact, now that they are starting to date more, too, Wednesday night has pretty much become date night for everyone. Which is, of course, hilarious, given the months they’ve spent saying, “Every week?! Come on now,” and the months I’ve laughed back, “Gotta keep the fire alive, man.”
It’s a little upsetting that I have to schedule a regular date night into my week if I ever want to see my man. (Thus my plea for help de-nutsing my life.) But I got the inspiration from my parents, who are still together, and more than that, are still happy together after 25+ years of marriage. They’ve tried to schedule a weekly date night every week for twenty-five years. Wrap your mind around that, y'all. Especially in between kids, school, church, multiple jobs, moving, grad school, no jobs, moving… If they didn’t schedule time to “be in love” one night of every week, they wouldn’t have time for it. That’s the sad part, if you ask me. But it’s also indispensable. That's the way our lives are these days, in this culture. We don't have time to be in love, or even to get a grasp on what that means in the first place.
To get a slightly different angle on the topic, let’s take a jaunt back to my sophomore year of college, when I was a free agent and just figuring out what that meant. I met a guy named Tim at a pillow fight planned by one of the theater groups on campus, of which he was a part. He was interesting, and he thought I was interesting, and we ran into each other at the silverware station in the caf a few weeks later and I don’t remember quite what happened, but we made plans to hang out.
Regardless of how it all went down, we got together a few times just to talk. New friends-like. And then it was the end of the semester and we decided to go to late night breakfast together (St. Olaf’s best finals week tradition, in my opinion) and in our Facebook thread he said, “It’s a date.” And I freaked.
“I guess I should clarify,” he wrote back. “I’m defining ‘date’ as two adults spending time explicitly with each other in order to determine whether they are romantically compatible or if they’re better off just being friends.”
That definition changed my life.
Before Tim, the moment I agreed to go on a date was the moment I signed your freedom and singlehood away forever. Now? It’s time I set aside to spend with a specific person and to focus on our relationship. I do usually see Jason more than just on Wednesdays, but that’s the night we always know for sure we’re going to spend with just us. That consistency is super important. Especially since quality time is my top love language. You can tell I like you if I want to spend time with you. Pretty simple.
(Incidentally, it just occurred to me that my sister tells me she cares about me by sending me photo messages of things I said I wanted to buy, and telling me how much they cost in different stores or states. She also gives me hugs and says cute things, but I like figuring out the subtle ways we say that stuff to each other. That's love iRL.) (...in Real Life.)
On top of being a check-in point and a time to keep the fire burning, Wednesday night date night also forces us to come up with new and interesting things to do, to keep from getting complacent. This summer our Wednesday dates have got me to see The Italian Job and the Italian Festival, both of which I liked a lot; we’ve gone swimming; we’ve gone for sushi and beer and fro-yo; we’ve hit the mall and HIMYM; we saw Avengers, Rock of Ages, Wanderlust, and The Hunger Games; we went to the Delaware Shakespeare Festival to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he bought me my first ever Philly cheesesteak at Tony Luke's; and last night, we went to World Café Live at the Queen for their Grilled Cheese & Craft Beer Night. (The winning round, in my opinion was the Brooklyn Blast IPA and a swiss cheese with house-made duck pastrami on rye bread. A close second grilled cheese was the manchego with jerk chicken on caramelized plantain bread, and the second place beer was Victory Yakima Glory. Although now I'm second-guessing myself. Everything was SO, so good.)Lots of delicious, hilarious, active, important, interesting things that we do together, sharing our old interests and stumbling upon new ones. I would like to be able to use any and all of those adjectives to describe my relationship overall, as well as the individual dates.
To top it all off, we were walking off the four to-die-for grilled cheeses and the peach cake and all the mind-blowing beers (I won’t tell you how many there were) up and down Market Street when a guy approaching us called out, “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see a cute couple walking out here.”
Keepin’ the fire alive, man.
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