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E74: The scavenger hunt date

Looking for different date ideas? A way to really sweep your love off their feet and remind them how much you care? Enter the scavenger hunt date. In this episode, we walk you through the options for creating this date, whether you’re looking for a big gesture or just a fun lead up to finding a surprise or meal at home. This is a brilliant way to mix up your dating life, especially during the endless days of quarantine. There are also long distance options! 

From Long Distance to Marriage – Episode 74

Rich	Everyone, welcome to episode 74 From Long Distance to Marriage. We are still in quarantine; coronavirus is still going on. Hope you’re making the most of it.
Aindrea	Hopefully it’s almost over by now as well.
Rich	Hopefully. No not hopefully that is what you just said. Today we are talking about scavenger hunts.
Aindrea	Dates.
Rich	So, the thing about lockdown and quarantine, so this is something where long-distance couples are fairly sheltered from a lot of this disruption because unless you were going to be visiting each other, it’s almost business as usual in the sense that you are already long distance.
Aindrea	Apart.
Rich	So, we will talk about things you can do in this as well but also we know that people who weren’t long distance, as we said last week you may live really close together but because your not allowed to see each other you kind of feel long distance.
Aindrea	Thirdly, we talked about couples being smashed together in the same house or apartment a few weeks ago. Because we are all just staying home all the time unless you’re a key/essential worker, you might still be going out to work. And if you are thank you very much. But yeah, so for those couples who like us are still living your life together but we are in the same house, our date life has taken a beating, we usually go out to our favourite mall and grab lunch, we would go to the movies, we would go up to London to see friends, get something to eat, just have a day out up in London. Not every single week, but I’d say a couple of times a month we have a really nice date evening or day date. And that is suffering, although you also know that we are a big fan of date nights at home.
Rich	Yeah so, what we are going to talk about today is the scavenger hunt date and the reason we want to talk about this is because it works for both. Both in the sense of if your together or if you are not together. So, you did one years ago for me when we were physically in the same house, in the same bed. It was my birthday, woke up and you gave me a note I think it was in my card.
Aindrea	Yeah, I gave you a clue in your card, which then led you to gifts on the bed and they were numbered. I think it led you to gift one and there was some clue in that card, and you had to find a certain page number in the book.
Rich	I ended up in your pants and cupboard.
Aindrea	Let’s see if we can remember this. Card led to the book. The clue in the book, I think I put a post it note between some pages. I can’t believe you just said that, I forgot about that part. The post it in the book led to a post it in my panties that I was wearing which led to the pantry in the kitchen.
Rich	Yeah.
Aindrea	And you had to find.
Rich	Wasn’t it in the cereal or something?
Aindrea	It was in the pasta, I think. Not the one that had been in my underwear, a new fresh post it with a clue and then I, I can’t remember where else, but it ended up with a big storage closet down stairs and his present was a huge office chair because he worked from home so it was a big executive leather office chair. And yeah it was in the cupboard. It was just a very miniature version of what we are going to suggest that you guys do.
Rich	Yeah.
Aindrea	But it was fun, it was exciting. It involved my pants.
Rich	Yeah which is always good. So, let’s pretend quarantine is not happening, it’s business as usual and you can go out. Then it is a really really good opportunity to do things and basically send your other half on a hunt across town or the city. That could be, if you’ve had dates in the same town, it may be that we met at this bar or that restaurant was our first date and you’ve got a favourite place to go for drinks or somewhere you go to see a show. You can set something up that involves them going to all of those places. So, it’s a trip down memory lane, there is some nice nostalgia to it, plus it earns you brownie points because it demonstrates that you remember all that stuff and it’s very romantic.
Aindrea	You stole this from Jeff and Adam, from their engagement.
Rich	A good idea is a good idea, it doesn’t matter where it comes from.
Aindrea	It is.
Rich	So, that’s one you can do when things are a bit more normal.
Aindrea	Say it was you and me for example. One day I come home, there’s a note, get dressed.
Rich	Or maybe a Saturday morning.
Aindrea	Yeah but you would have to remove yourself from the picture. Here’s your coffee babe, enjoy the challenge, I will see you later.
Rich	The idea is that I would eb the last place. What would be really shit is if I sent you on a massive scavenger hunt and it ended back at ours with me watching TV.
Aindrea	So, say the first thing would said me to my favourite breakfast place, and they would have a coffee and a muffin waiting for me to go. And then they would give me the next clue.
Rich	That’s the point. There’s two ways of doing that. The ultimate would be if you could liaise with people there, saying she’s going to turn up, can you do this? Your previous clue might be talk to the woman with blonde hair behind the bar.
Aindrea	It might be a clue that would lead me to Starbucks because you know I love Starbucks, and you might have gone there beforehand and arranged something.
Rich	Yes, but if it was not possible. Not everywhere may be willing to do that or there’s too many people working there. You would have to find an alternative. Maybe it’s look under the chair here. You’d have to be a bit more creative about it. But yeah, each place would lead you to the subsequent place.
Aindrea	Yeah. I’m just giving you ideas now. It might lead me to my favourite park where I sit and have my coffee, and there’s a note under the bench. Maybe the end is a romantic lunch where I meet you. So, that’s definitely one way. There’s another way to do it, which is a challenge. Where you each have a list that’s slightly different, but same number of points, things you have to find, and do it more of a traditional way, where you each have a list of 10 things you need to find, a house with a red door, a vegan place. You each have to go out but separate, and then you meet at the end. And whoever won would have to buy drinks. Or you can do it with another couple, where Rich and I would do it and then his sister and brother in law would have it, and we would have to compete against each other. So, in terms of what you do, we will include links in the show notes of links to online of what you could do, scavenger hunt lists. You could call a friend and have them put the list together. You could make each other lists but don’t be a jerk to try make yourself win. So that’s when the world is normal again and we can all go out of our houses and have fun and be together. But we’re not there yet.
Rich	You can still do this while you’re apart. I’m sure you can make them online. That would be nice because if you make them then you can make them put in the answer to unlock question two. So, do it. What I like about is that it’s different. Anyone can sit down and play Xbox and play it online together, and that’s fine, they’re enjoyable but they’re impersonal. What’s nice about this one is that you’re taking the time to think about it and you’re demonstrating that you took the time, you remembered this stuff and it’s important to you. From a relationship point of view, it really helps to strengthen things.
Aindrea	I think that’s if you’re doing the first one, that’s a bit more elaborate. For the second one, if it’s long distance, you can ask them to walk around their neighbourhood and find a fire hydrant, a mailbox, red door, a dog. It doesn’t have to be thoughtful and if you do struggle with those nostalgic things then you could do simple things you might find.
Rich	Also, while amazon is still delivering, you could have something delivered to a nearby amazon point, rather than their house. So, they don’t know that this thing is arriving for them, and you can have a scavenger hunt that ends there to pick up their present.
Aindrea	Do you think that’s safe right now? I wouldn’t want to go to a shop unless it was necessary.
Rich	Well that’s up to them. These are just ideas we have come up with, this is limited as your imagination makes it.
Aindrea	Yeah for sure. For couples like us who are not long distance but crammed in the house and not able to go to your favourite restaurants, cocktails bars, dancing or whatever you like to do with your dates.
Rich	We never go dancing.
Aindrea	I would go dancing.
Rich	I wouldn’t.
Aindrea	You danced with me at a few weddings recently and we had a good time. So, what you can do is still do that simple list of things to find, something yellow, old, homemade, and you both have to go through the house and find them together. It would be good if a person who knows your house would do it, so you can ask someone else or each other, and then compete. But you could still make it very thoughtful. The clues could be elaborate and exciting with a big date at the end, but it could be more in the house.
Rich	In the house can be really fun and you can make it quite hard. Such as my favourite film then in the film box it can say your shoes that I hate. You can go all over the place and in the garden, in the loft.
Aindrea	Yeah, you can make it really sentimental. The ending could be they find a recipe and that’s the dinner you’re going to cook together. It can be whatever you want it to be, but I think we’re in a unique position right now where you can try make the best out of a bad situation and being creative can come into play and be helpful with that.
Rich	Also, you had an idea a little while ago about getting really dressed up regardless of what you’re doing.
Aindrea	Yeah. We did a guest post for sexy marriage radio.
Rich	Yeah. The idea of the idea was cheap or free date ideas at home. You can get really dressed up as if you were going out. Let’s say the guys doing it, and you can get an outfit you want her to wear, put it on the bed, do a little scavenger hunt that leads to that. From there it leads to the garden and you’ve already cooked dinner. The point is then you’ve made dinner, even if they know it’s not going to ruin it. It’s a nice something different. You can really adapt it to whatever the situation is.
Aindrea	Yeah you can and you should. I know everyone is having lots of movie and games nights, and that’s great if you don’t do them. But depending on how long this goes on for it could get old pretty quick.
Rich	Yeah it could. And not everyone is into watching films every night. And it’s the fact you’ve gone from your normal routine to this being forced on you. It could go on a while. Anything new is going to be nice as well. And anything that requires some thought is going to kill some time and show you that they’ve put the effort in for you. I think it works on multiple levels.
Aindrea	Yeah. I’ve seen loads online about how adults’ lives are really fucked right now, and children’s lives are really affected too, they’re not at school, they’re at home. But I’ve seen lots of sweet posts from my friends who have children and they’ve said let’s look back on this, yeah there was scary stuff in the world, but at least my family were together, we got to sleep in, things were messy but we get to play a lot. This is a time where you can enrich your relationship and I think this was a time where we really thought outside the box, we did creative things to make us feel closer, we’ve had more fun even though we’re stuck in the house. Do what you can to make it a bit more enjoyable. We haven’t done any exciting dates like that, but we’ve been working on projects together, we’ve been spending time together in the backyard around the firepit which we would normally not have time to do. I have been cooking different meals and trying different things which makes our evenings together nicer. There are tonnes you can do.
Rich	Yeah. We’ve been saying through all these coronavirus and quarantine episodes, that it’s all about finding that silver lining. You can do something together, learn a new hobby together. But yeah, I think the scavenger hunt works so well because it can be adapted to whatever your situation is right now.
Aindrea	I think also we want to feel closer to a time not that long ago when the world was a normal place. The struggle with that is that we can forget what that looked like or romanticise it. By doing one of the more nostalgic scavenger hunt dates, that’s possibly going to be more confined to your homes, but you can go through memories. In long distance relationships, it is still possible to be nostalgic, maybe a link to a Spotify list you created of songs that makes you think of them, link to a website of a band whose concert you went together.
Rich	You can out all that in the hunt too. The clue could be in the lyrics maybe or in the second paragraph on a website.
Aindrea	You can do this online absolutely. You have to be a bit more creative, but you can absolutely do it. You just need to use your wits.
Rich	We have more date ideas in our Ultimate Guide to Long Distance Relationships. We’ve got theme dates, favourite dates, general date ideas, sex stuff. So, if you’re struggling or it’s new to you or this has disrupted things for you, then head over to the guide. We have loads of information that will help get you through.
Aindrea	Our blog too. We have different date ideas, conversation starters, all sorts of stuff that can help you.
Rich	Also let us know about anything we haven’t spoken about that you would like us to, and maybe we will.
Aindrea	Absolutely. Hang in there guys. Bye.