Date Night

My wife and I went out on a date last night. An honest to goodness date. We arranged a baby sitter for the kids, and then I knocked on the front door, and told my wife, when she answered, that I was there to pick her up. It's a funny little ritual we have, and we start all of our dates that way. It makes us feel like we're in high school again.

Which is the point of date night. We do it to break the routine of grown-up life. It doesn't matter where we go. Sometimes we go out to dinner, sometimes we go mini-golfing, last night, we went bowling. Occassionally, despite our low-brow tastes, we get ambitious and go out to a fancy restaraunt. We've even gone to plays and musicals; Rent and Les Mis were date nights for us.

What's important for us, is to do something that we don't normally do in the routine grind of our lives, and to do it together. We want to make sure that we can keep ourself feeling young and fresh about each other.

So, last night, we went bowling. To put it in perspective, I am probably the world's worst bowler. I once bowled a 12, and I was stone cold sober at the time. My wife's not so bad; she's pretty reliable about rolling a 120, which means I've never beaten her in all the years we've known each other. Between you, me, and the Staten Island Ferry, I think that's why she keeps playing the game.

Last night was fun, though. We got to wear silly shoes, and through heavy balls down a slick wooden lane at a bunch of 10-pins, and drink a few brews while were doing it. What could be better than that? We had some laughs, which is what we were after.

That's what makes the pick-up ritual so important. We'd both had lousy days at work, but we'd planned date night well in advance. We knew it was happening. When I knocked on my own front door, and told my own wife that I was there to pick her up for her date, it helped us to get outside the pattern of the day, and start something new. I have psychologist friends who've told me that we're tapping into a vital principle of relationship building when we do that.

I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know about that. What I do know, is that we never talk work or kids on a date night, and always start date night with the same little ritual. And that among our circle of friends, we're one of only three couples that's never been divorced.