12 Things to Do at Home With Your Boyfriend That Beat Another Night of Scrolling

Two people on one couch, two different screens. Neither of you decided on that. It just happened again.

And somewhere in there one of you thinks we should do something, and doesn't say it out loud. Saying it out loud makes you the one who has to come up with the something.

When I asked couples where connection breaks down, one wrote:

"We get lost in whatever we are scrolling through, and miss out on conversation."

That's most couples on most nights. It isn't a sign that anything is wrong with the two of you.

Why the Phone Wins When Neither of You Picks the Night

Your phone isn't more fun than your boyfriend. It's just faster to start.

Michael Easter went looking for why we keep repeating behavior that gives us so little back, and in Scarcity Brain he calls the pattern the scarcity loop. It has three parts: a shot at something good, a payoff you can't predict, and the speed to go again.

"Posting offers us an opportunity to enhance our social standing and each notification feels like the unpredictability of spinning reels."

That third part is the one that decides your evening. The faster you can repeat something, the more you repeat it, and a thumb flick takes no setup at all.

A night with him takes an idea, a few minutes of setup, and one of you willing to say it first. So on any night neither of you has picked something, the phone wins by default. It's already open.

So the fix has nothing to do with willpower.

The fix is picking the night before you sit down.

John and Julie Gottman put the stakes plainly in Eight Dates:

"Play is a necessary and vital part of our relationships."

They quote a woman named Kim, newly engaged, in her twenties:

"We planned all these fun things to do together when we were dating. Surfing and amusement parks and concerts and baseball games. Now we’re living together and planning our wedding, and it feels like we just watch television or go to a movie when we have some free time together. We don’t make the same effort to do new things. I'm worried we will end up like one of those couples who sits in restaurants, year after year, with absolutely nothing new or interesting to say to each other."

Nobody signs up to be that couple. It arrives one unpicked night at a time.

So here are twelve, sorted by the mood you're in when you look at each other and say "what do you want to do." Pick one for tonight.

Nights That Make You Laugh

1. Relationship Pictionary

For two people with no drawing ability between them.

You each take five or ten minutes to draw one of your first memorable moments together. (Stick figures count. So do arrows and labels.) Then you take turns guessing what the other one was trying to capture, and once you've both guessed, stay in the memory a minute and talk about it. Two or three rounds is plenty.

Costs: paper and a pen.

2. The Compliment Fight

For when you want to be laughing inside sixty seconds.

Start a timer. Take turns giving each other compliments, except you deliver every one of them like you're furious about it. "You are unbelievably good to my family and it makes me sick." First one to laugh or pause loses and owes the other a back rub.

Costs: nothing.

3. Karaoke With a Hairbrush

For the two of you who already sing in the car.

Karaoke tracks are all over YouTube (Sing King and Stingray Karaoke have most of what you'd want). Build the list together: a song from a good memory, one that sounds like your relationship, and one each of you thinks the other secretly loves. A hairbrush works as a microphone. So does a spatula.

Costs: nothing.

Nights You Make Something

4. Build a Board

For hungry, with nobody in the mood to cook a real meal.

You each pick one cheese, one meat, one wild card and one drink, from the fridge or on a quick store run. Then you build the board together: fan out the meat, cut the cheese into shapes, add whatever fruit, nuts, olives and crackers you have. Candle on, eat with your hands, feed each other the wild cards.

Costs: whatever the groceries run, or nothing if the fridge is already stocked.

5. Teach Each Other the Dish You Grew Up On

For two people who have met each other's families and still can't cook a thing from either kitchen.

You each pick the one dish that tastes like the house you grew up in, then text whoever still has the recipe. You teach him yours, he teaches you his, either the same night or one each. The stories come out on their own while you are chopping.

Costs: whatever the recipe needs.

6. Chocolate and Strawberries, the Long Way

For the night you want it to get a little flirty.

Melt semisweet or dark chocolate chips on the stove with a splash of milk, cream and vanilla, and keep it off the boil. Dip strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, cookies, whatever's around. Feed each other. If you want to turn it into a game, blindfold him before the first bite.

Costs: $25 or so for the chocolate and the berries.

Nights You End Up Talking

7. Would You Rather

For takeout on the coffee table and no agenda.

Trade would-you-rather questions over the food, and make every answer come with the reason behind it. The reason is the good part. A sentimental gift or an expensive one. A walk on the beach or a hike. Being loved or being in love. A good morning text or a good night text. More time or more money.

Costs: nothing.

8. Plan the Trip You Can't Take Yet

For broke, restless and in the mood to dream.

Pick somewhere neither of you has been. Give yourselves an imaginary budget, then you each build a rival version of the trip: where you'd stay, the one splurge dinner, what happens on day two. Present them to each other and argue it out. (You will both cheat on the budget.)

Costs: nothing.

9. Rewrite a Song Into Your Story

For the couple who has a song.

Pull up the lyrics to a song you both like. Starting with the chorus, rewrite the words as the story of how you two met. Keeping the same vowel sounds makes it harder and much funnier. Sing the real version afterwards.

Costs: nothing.

Nights the Phones Stay in the Other Room

10. Build the Fort

For anyone who built forts as a kid and owns four chairs and too many blankets.

Clear a patch of floor and line two sides with chairs facing outward. Drape blankets down the sides for walls, a sheet across the top for a roof, and clip it all together with clothespins or binder clips. Fairy lights inside. Snacks once it's standing. Phones stay outside the fort.

Costs: $25 if you need to buy the lights and the clips.

11. The Ten Minute Swap

For two people fried from the week with nothing left to say.

You each pick a part of the body you want worked on. Rock paper scissors for who goes first. Ten minutes of the best massage you can manage, then swap. Ask what pressure he likes before you start, dim the lights, and leave both phones on silent in the other room. The attention matters more than the technique.

Costs: a bottle of oil and a candle, if you want them.

Learning a Few Dance Moves Together

The last one is the only idea on this list that gets better the second time you do it.

12. Push the Coffee Table Back and Learn Two Dance Moves

For a couple who wants one night that still works six months from now.

You're both bad at it for the first song. That turns out to be the fun part. Nobody is the teacher here and nobody is the student. You're two beginners in a living room with the furniture shoved against the wall, stepping on each other and laughing about it.

And it doesn't run out. Pictionary is great twice. A handful of dance moves works at his cousin's wedding, at every reception you get invited to after that, and in your kitchen on a random night when a song you both like comes on.

That's what I built Date Nights Dancing for: 50 easy swing dance moves across three levels, taught at home one date night at a time. It's built for beginners and non-dancers, and it needs no rhythm. It streams on a phone, a tablet or the TV, and you can rewind a move as many times as it takes.

Social swing works to almost any song already on your phone. And if he tells you he has two left feet, he is the exact person it was built for.

If he's a flat no on dancing, pick number four and come back to this another time.

And if none of these twelve fit tonight, that's fine too. I keep a longer list of at home date night ideas sorted by whatever is in the way that night: no money, no energy, nothing left to say.