Writing Romance: 100 Different Date Ideas that Aren’t Dinner

Quick, think of a place for two people to fall in love. The Eifel tower might pop up. Sunset on the beach. Riding horses, swords in hand, battling bandits. Or, very often, two people laughing over spaghetti (do we have Lady and the Tramp to blame? Too bad the most romantic scene in cinema is had by dogs).

I often find myself wanting to write a romantic scene and defaulting to this set-up, chatting over dinner— which is a classic but can become repetitive. At the end of stories, I then realize they’ve had most of their major romantic scenes in the same way. The monotony is easy to fall into, so here are some ideal alternatives.

I’ve come up with a list of a hundred different date settings that might help other writers with the same dilemma. They are broken up into a few different categories as well.

You could say turning into butterflies is also a type of unique date.

UNIQUE

1. Monarch butterfly count
2. Chalk-art festival
3. Invisible ink tattoos
4. Porch fest event
5. Competitive scavenger hunt
6. Little Free Library neighborhood tour
7. “Say Yes” Day, accept first offer they find
8. Urban exploration (bonus for any local legends)
9. Making a time capsule…