Dating Should Be Fun

Friday was date night. Which in my world either means Frasier and Dominos or some activity that is better suited to teenagers. As such, we went to the trampoline park. After an hour and a half of playing dodge ball, diving onto an airbag, pretending to be gladiators on a balance beam, and racing around - we called it a success and did one more lap across the park, before limping off the trampolines. While changing for dinner, I started chatting with a teenager in the bathroom and we got on the subject of dating. Naturally, I felt honored bound to impart some dating advice to her and shockingly enough she thought it was brilliant....she may have been pandering to me because she couldn't clean the bathroom until I left, but I am going with rapt attention...

So here was my advice: Dating should be fun and should afford you opportunities to actually get to know someone. Dating isn't hard, it is just answering the question, "Do I want to be with you?" If no, then move on. But if yes, then date some more, learn some more and add a "still" to the sentence and keep repeating the process. The problem is that we over complicate and add pressure to something that should be simple and in doing so, we take the fun out of it. Dating has become an over scheduled cycle of drinks and dinners with everyone telling their same story over and over again until it is robotic sales pitch. Which is where my advice comes in, bring the fun back. 

After that first yes, get out of the cycle and go do something together. For clarification: I am not advocating that you go hike in the woods on a second date - because no one needs to get murdered; but go bowling or mini-golfing. Do an activity together and if it is slightly ridiculous, that is even better because it makes for a better story and puts you both on even footing. When you do an activity like this you end up learning a lot about the person, but what you are learning is the stuff that that isn't on their standard script. You see how they act when put in a situation that may be a bit uncomfortable (hello, having to hit the golf ball 8 times on the first hole that has a par 3); you see how they handle competition (sore loser, or laugh it off); you see if they can embrace the silly (do they start counting strokes in a different language at each hole); and you get to see how the conversation can flow when not practiced. In other words you get to know the real person, and hopefully you get to have a ton of fun - because trust me, these are fun activities and dating.should.be.fun! Plus, if you kick your partner's butt you get to do a completely undignified victory dance ...or if you are like me and lose, you will get to blackmail them forever with video footage of that undignified victory dance. Either way, a good time.

I know it is simple advice, and for those of you not in the trenches it may seem silly, but for those of us out there dating - this is a game changer. You will learn so much more about a person over an activity than you will over 4 of those yawn filled dinners. And if you find a keeper, you may score a nice dinner with a whole new level of conversation as a consolation prize for getting you butt kicked.