Who said staying at home can’t be fun? Remember when we were kids? Back then we didn’t have much trouble living in our own worlds and relying on our imaginative capacities to have fun. The house we lived in was as big as a city, heck, as big as the whole world! The good news is that indoor date ideas can really put some motion in our sometimes mopish daily realities, and make us feel playful as adults.
I mean, where did all that go once we grew up? Why does it seem as if we aren’t capable anymore to rely on our imaginative powers in these harsh times when we often have to stay home for longer periods of time due to the coronavirus crisis? And who says you need to feel claustrophobic spending all that time in the house with your spouse, feeling like your personal space is gone?
The good thing is we still can rely on our imagination to make our lives easier and enjoy ourselves even in harsh circumstances. So why not use it to enjoy our time in lockdown with our partner?
Indoor Date Ideas
Turns out there’s plenty you can do within the confines of your own home – indoor date ideas can really work to bring a sense of excitement and spark up your levels of intimacy and your joint activities around the house.
You don’t have to be “stuck” inside and really feel stuck – you can play around even if you have a tiny home, as long as you rely on your inherent imaginative capacities and your need for playfulness.
Let’s see now just what it is that you can do around the house to bring these indoor date ideas into your own home!
Make an Event From the Act of Having Breakfast
When’s the last time you gave each other breakfast in bed? Or felt like you both had proper breakfast together?
Cooking can be a wonderful ritual if you make it one, and breakfast shouldn’t be expelled from that category. Besides, isn’t breakfast considered the most important meal of the day?
So, the next time you wake up, I suggest you do a little breakfast ritual before both of you set out working from home (if you’re working from home, that is). Try searching for interesting and challenging breakfast recipes that you can do together.
What you can also do is get up a bit earlier than your partner and surprise them with the breakfast in bed scenario, preferably with their favorite breakfast meal or maybe a new thing you’ve looked up and prepared just for them. I guarantee you, this will bring a smile on both your faces and really brighten up your day.
Having breakfast together can be a really romantic act and whatever setbacks are waiting for you throughout the day, you can always look forward to the meal you’ve had together and the time you spent together in the morning eating it and making it.
It’s Cocktail Hour! Or Hours…
I love cocktails – I love drinking them and recently I also began to love making them.
Cocktails can be a lot of fun to do in your home. Is there a particular one you or your partner loves? Or a particular type of alcohol as a base for a range of cocktails… Whatever it is, cocktails are easier to make than they seem. There are so many varieties of them and lots of them include only a couple of ingredients that you can easily find in your kitchen.
What’s more, playing a cocktail master or a really well-versed bartender can be a really sexy scenario you can use for your foreplay as well.
Which brings me to my next indoor date idea:
Pretend Like You’re On a Really Fancy Date
You can do this in a number of ways: you can both be some really high-end people that got together for a (first-time?) date at a really expensive bar.
Or maybe your wife is the one visiting a bar looking for a hookup and you’re the sexy bartender that’s going to fulfill all her (alcohol) requirements?
And this, of course, means that you’ll have to dress up, which is also fun and will help bring you out of your comfort clothes (see sweatpants).
Put on some of that expensive perfume, shave (or don’t if that’s your style), clean your fancy shoes with shoeshine, find those forgotten candles in your kitchen drawers, put on some smooth, sexy, jazzy music. Heck, maybe even pop champagne! Anything goes as long as you’re having fun and getting in the mood and your roles.
Organize a Cook-Off With Your Partner
Remember that show “The Great British Bake Off”? If not, that’s ok, there are tons of shows like this where you basically challenge a set of people to do a particular meal for a certain amount of time.
Well, I suggest you do this at home! Trust me, it can be a lot of fun, putting the two of you in that competitive spirit, trying to outwit and outcook your partner in the course of an hour or two.
And you can do this with whatever you have at home, it doesn’t have to be (too) fancy or expensive. You can maybe even try challenging yourselves to come up with a meal (but do try to make it edible at least).
The great thing about a joint cook-off is that it can help build intimacy and can be really romantic, that is if you don’t take the competitive side of it TOO seriously. Otherwise, you risk taking all the fun of it.
And the best part is – you get to eat ALL of it at the end!
Start a Book/Film/TV Series Club
The occasional sad truth of lockdown is that it can feel like it’s affecting your mental health by constantly being obsessed with the news and the latest developments.
But there are ways to keep your mind sharp and diverted from the daily stressful news by forming your very own book club with your partner. Select a book that has caught your attention and give yourselves a few weeks (or days) to read it, after which you can discuss it. Alternatively, you can do it on a weekly basis and do it chapter by chapter, which can also be fun. I’d advise you to also include something to nibble on the side, just to make it more nuanced – you can have cheese and meat board, some wine, or sweets, fruit… whatever floats your boat.
You can do the same with films and TV Shows. You can, for example, do a streak of movie marathons for films you always wanted to watch but never seemed to have time for. Or do a streak for a particular director you’ve been interested in.
Recreate Your First Date
What better time to reminisce than lockdown and self-isolation? And what better time to recreate in detail (as much as possible) your first date?
Getting back to the more innocent, pre-pandemic time can bring a nice amount of freshness in your daily routine.
Think about your first date – was it a local bar, where you had a few drinks and a nice round of cute but also awkward conversation? Then recreate the setting. Get into the same clothes you wore that day (if you remember), order the same drinks (which you will have to make and/or buy, of course), and let the nostalgia carry you to the moment you first exchanged some more meaningful words with your significant other.
If your date was at a concert or a club, try to recreate the setting and don’t forget to add the music you were listening to that evening (I love doing this, reminiscing of old songs we both like).
Do an (Online) Double Date
Now, this depends on the lockdown stage you’re currently at – if you have begun to see close friends then I guess it’s ok to invite them over (but I strongly suggest checking with the health guidelines of your state for this).
Otherwise, I’d go for an online double date, which can also be a lot of fun, especially with close friends. You can set up a cheese and meat board with some drinks at your side and just give away to talking, checking in on each other, comforting and distracting each other in these trying times.
You can also do a game night together if that’s something you often do with coupled-up friends.
Organize a Game Night With Your Spouse
Board games are something that you can never get tired of, no matter how old you are – it’s just how they’re designed.
If you and your partner like playing board games, what better time is there to do this than lockdown time?
If you want to put a bit more edge to it, call it a tournament and make it even more competitive.
You can play Monopoly together, Scrabble, Clue, Battleship, Risk… You can also play chess or cards, assemble puzzles if that’s more up your alley, or play some fantasy board games. There’s plenty of them to choose from, anyways!
Alternatively, you can also play video games together – PlayStation, Xbox, computer games…whatever floats your boat.
Organize Food (and Drink) Tastings
Why not use the time of lockdown to organize food tastings from different cultures in your own living room?
Whether it’s your local take out restaurants – Chinese, Mexican, Greek, Vietnamese, Turkish, Lebanese, Venezuelan… you can make your choices depending on where you live.
If you’re a wine lover, you can do the same with wines and pretend you’re at some vineyard in Provence or Tuscany. Basically, you can do this with almost any type of alcohol – beer, for example, is also a good idea, since there are so many varieties and brands of it out there.
Have a Spa Day
Since the spa will be a forbidden fruit for a while in the near future, your next spa relaxation day should be at home. And trust me, this is much easier to do than it sounds!
All you need is a couple of scented candles, some massage oil, maybe even some face (and/or hair) masks if you want to level up the experience, and there you go! Also, don’t forget to turn on some relaxing music in the background and transport yourself to your favorite wellness place.
If you have a bathtub, you can even do a joint bathing session, but if you don’t that’s ok. You can also do it in the shower – turn on the water, let the steam fill your bathroom and begin your spa day, in any order you want!
Besides, this sounds like a helluva sexy scenario doesn’t it? Massage oils, steamy shower sessions… Who says this spa day can’t give you a wonderful indoor date with your wife or partner that you’ll remember both for its relaxing parts, but also the great sex you’re gonna have afterward – or during, heck, there are no rules, it’s spa day!
Have a Karaoke Night
Nowadays it’s super-easy to organize a karaoke night at home, and why not do it during a lockdown? Besides, karaoke can be a great way to blow off steam and spend a fun night with your partner in the confines of your own home.
If you have a karaoke machine, that’s great, but there’s no fuss if you don’t. All you need is a TV or computer – just go to YouTube and search for the karaoke versions of your favorite songs. And, if you get too much in the mood, you’ll always have the spoons, deodorants, hairbrushes, brooms, and mops as a perfect replacement for the beloved microphones!
Work Together on a Small Change in Your Household
Now, I know this might not sound like one of your typical indoor date ideas, but trust me, it can be a lot of fun. Is there something you’ve been wanting to change in your home for ages now, but never seem to find the time to do it?
Well, lockdown is a perfect time! Whether it’s reorganizing the spice shelves, decluttering your kitchen drawers, getting rid of old clothes (or finding new ways to wear them!), all of this can be a part of your joint mini home redecoration project.
Another idea is to build stuff, but that’s a bit of a level up, and it requires you to be more versed in carpentry and the like. But if you both can do it, I’d definitely advise you to go for it!
Final Thoughts
Well, obviously there are plenty of more things you can do in your own homes – I haven’t exhausted all indoor date ideas, although I wanted to mention some of the more interesting ones that have also worked for me and my partner flawlessly.
Lockdown doesn’t have to be a time of depression or too much rumination and negative thoughts; it doesn’t have to be a time where you feel claustrophobic and trapped against your will with your partner.
It can also be a time where you get to rediscover things about each other and work on your intimacy, and I sincerely hope these indoor date ideas will contribute a lot in those endeavors!
