Fun Date Night Ideas at Home: 10 Ways to Get the Laughing Back
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What couples miss most Why the fun went first 10 fun date nights at home Dancing gets funnier If you want out of the houseWhen I asked couples what they miss most from their early days, one wrote:
"We take ourselves too serious. Forgot how to do silly"
Another one:
"We do have fun together and laugh often but I miss the goofy stuff, our inner child fun"
Ninety-one people have written me some version of that. More than the ones who write about money, or sex, or the kids.
Not one of them asked for a nicer restaurant.
They want to be goofy with each other again. They just can't remember how it used to start.
Why the Fun Went First
Nobody decides to stop being silly together. It just stops getting scheduled.
John and Julie Gottman wrote a book called Eight Dates about the conversations couples need to have. They put this in writing:
"play and fun is often the first thing to go in a relationship and the last thing to get done on the “to do” list"
Couple after couple describes that same order. The silly stuff fell off the calendar first, and it's still sitting at the bottom of the list under the gutters and the dentist.
The same book quotes Stuart Brown, who founded the National Institute for Play. Brown says that when you "take play out of the mix, a relationship becomes a survival endurance contest."
Which is a fair description of most Wednesdays. Dishes, lunches, laundry, bed.
So when you two finally do sit down, whatever asks the least of you wins. Television asks nothing.
Another person put the swap in plain terms:
"We spent more time actively engaging with each other like playing a game or doing some activity together rather than passively enjoying entertainment like watching TV."
The way back isn't a fancier night. Fancy needs planning, and planning is the thing you two have the least of.
It's a lower bar. Something a little dumb, set up in ten minutes, that gives you one reason to laugh before the night is over.
And if it's been a long stretch since the last one, that's not a verdict on the two of you. That's what a full calendar does to everybody who has one.
10 Fun Date Night Ideas at Home
These are the ones that get laughs. Most come straight out of the date nights I send couples every week, and none of them need a sitter, a reservation, or both of you in a good mood at the same time.
If what's in your way tonight is money or timing rather than laughing, my full list of at home date night ideas is sorted by the obstacle instead.
1. Relationship Pictionary
Who it's for: couples with a long history and no drawing talent between them
Each of you takes five minutes to draw one of your first memorable moments together. No words on the paper. Trade, guess what the other one was going for, then tell the story behind it. Two or three rounds is plenty.
Cost: free, paper and a pen.
2. Karaoke With a Hairbrush
Who it's for: the couple who sings in the car and stops at the driveway
Pull up karaoke tracks on YouTube (Sing King has most of what you'll want). Build a five-song list together: one song with a good memory attached, one that could pass for your song, and one each of you picks to sing at the other. A hairbrush or a spatula is the microphone. The first two are duets, no getting out of it.
Cost: free.
3. The Bad Movie Draft
Who it's for: the couple who already turned the TV on, and nobody who takes movies seriously
Each of you finds the worst-looking movie on whatever you already pay for. Poster art only, no reviews, no trailers. Flip a coin for whose pick wins, then talk your way through the whole thing out loud like two people hired to fix it. Loser makes the popcorn.
Cost: free.
4. The Compliment Fight
Who it's for: the two of you already in bed with nothing left in the tank
Start a timer. Take turns complimenting each other out loud in your angriest possible voice. You go first. First one to laugh or run out of words loses and owes the other a back rub.
Cost: free, and it takes one minute.
5. Charcuterie Chaos
Who it's for: couples who would rather build dinner than cook it
At the store, each of you picks one cheese, one meat, one wild card and one drink, without telling the other. (If nobody is leaving the house again tonight, shop the fridge and the pantry instead, same rules.) Build the board together. Fan the meat out, cut the cheese into shapes nobody needs, fill the gaps with fruit and nuts and pickles. Light a candle, eat with your hands, and make each other try the wild cards.
Cost: about $25 in groceries, or free if you raid the fridge.
6. Rewrite Your Song
Who it's for: couples who tell the story of how they met two different ways
Pick a song you both know and pull up the lyrics. Starting with the chorus, rewrite it as the story of how you two met, keeping the same vowel sounds where you can. Sing your version at the end. Then sing the real one, badly.
Cost: free.
7. Blanket Fort, Grown-Up Edition
Who it's for: the couple who has been looking at the same living room since Monday
Clear the floor, line up chairs facing out, drape blankets down the sides and a sheet across the top. Clip fairy lights inside, or stand a phone flashlight up so it points at the ceiling. Haul in pillows, snacks and a drink each. House rule: nothing said in the fort counts as a conversation about logistics.
Cost: free if you own fairy lights, about $25 if you don't.
8. Game Night With Stakes
Who it's for: the competitive one, and the one who lives with them
Any two-player game you already own, one game only. Before the first turn, each of you writes down what you want if you win: breakfast in bed, a day of yes, an hour of uninterrupted anything, a slow dance in the kitchen. Winner opens the other one's paper and collects.
Cost: free with a game you own.
9. Bob Ross Night
Who it's for: the couple who wants something to show for the night
Two canvases, cheap acrylics, and a beginner tutorial on YouTube. Same video, same painting, no peeking at each other's canvas until the end. No canvases in the house tonight? Printer paper and the kids' paint set do the job. Hang the worse one where guests will see it.
Cost: about $40 for canvases and paint, less at a dollar store.
10. Dumb Quiz Night
Who it's for: the couple who has said "I don't care, you pick" three nights running
Find the silliest online quizzes you can. Which cartoon cat are you. Which fast food fries are the best. Take each one twice, once as yourself and once as your best guess at how the other will answer, then score each other on how well you knew.
Cost: free.
Dancing Together Gets Funnier the Longer You Do It
Every night on that list is a single night. You do it, you laugh, and by next Friday you're staring at a blank page again.
There's one exception, and I'm biased about it, so weigh it accordingly.
Learning a few dance moves together in your living room gets funnier as you get better at it. Week one you're laughing because you both look ridiculous. A month in, you're laughing because one of you tried a spin nobody asked for and it worked.
Dancing comes up by name in those same answers:
"More laughter, dancing, cuddling"
That's what Date Nights Dancing is: 50 easy swing dance moves across three levels, taught at home for beginners and for the ones who say they have two left feet, streamed to your TV, phone, tablet or laptop. It runs on the same screen you were going to sit in front of anyway.
Fifteen minutes of it counts as a date. You'll both be bad at the first move at the same time, which is exactly why it works on a night when neither of you feels like doing anything.
If You Want Out of the House
Then go. Nothing on this list beats a night out. These are the ones that are always available.
If your partner has already given dancing a hard no, believe them and take one of the other nine.
And if one of you is running on empty tonight, skip the whole list. Order food, sit on the same end of the couch, and let it be an easy night. The silly stuff will keep until Thursday.
You two are still funny. That part didn't go anywhere.
It got buried under the calendar and the laundry and everything that had to get done first.
Any one of these nights digs it back out.
One snag with a list like this. Somebody still has to pick the night, and by Friday neither of you wants to be that person.
That's the reason I built Date Nights Dancing: 50 easy moves across three levels, made for couples with no experience and no rhythm, streamed to whatever screen is closest. The picking is done. You press play on the next move.
If you want to start tonight, you could put on a song you both like and learn one move together. Fifteen minutes is the whole date. You're allowed to be terrible at it.
Nobody is watching. It's the two of you in your own living room, laughing at the same thing at the same time.
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