Once you were married, or settled down with your chosen significant other, dating used to be one of the things that a large number of people said "phew - thank goodness I'm out of that loop" about. But in the last few years "Date Nights" have become a "thing" for a lot of people, it seems. Well I say "a lot of people" but actually I suspect that should read "A lot of people with a heavy reliance on social media" - as that seems to be where it's originated. Now, if it just stopped as people taking the view that it's something they choose to do, that would be fine, but like so many hashtag-worthy subjects, a lot of people seem to see the fact that they do "Date Nights" as a route to feel smug, or worse, to outright try to shame others who're choosing to travel a different path.
As she so often does, Kendra makes a great case for the opposition on her Lazy Genius Collective Blog - alarmingly there are those out there trying to suggest that if you're not regularly "doing date night" it probably means that your marriage is in trouble. Seriously? Now last time I looked, there were all sorts of signs that a relationship might be in trouble, but failing to pop out for a mid-week pizza and beer isn't generally recognised as one of them. If you aren't spending time together at all then clearly that might suggest that something is a wee bit amiss, and perhaps it's time to think about focusing back on one another, but for the majority of us non date-nighters that's not the case. It's not that we're not spending time with that most-important-person-in-the-world-to-us - it's that we're not feeling the need to label that time publicly to others.
I was curious about the "Hashtag datenight" phenomenon so I googled it - astonishingly there is a company out there who, for £40 a month, will send you a ready made date in the post every month - thus removing even the need to sit down together and discuss what you might want to do. There was also a pretty universally panned film dating from 2010, but once you get past those, the majority of what you'll find is Social Media related. Instagram leads the way unsurprisingly with a mix of selfies, "meaningful" quotes and food pics, mostly with other "aspirational" hashtags attached all designed to show the world - or at least a couple of hundred followers - how "perfect" that person's life is. An occasional post clearly made with a good dollop of irony thrown in stands out a mile - and are almost exclusively British (no surprise there!). It's when you stray onto Urban Dictionary definitions that things get REALLY interesting though - and indeed "Date night is the negotiated exchange of a night out for the lady resulting in an*l sex for the man" nearly made me spit my tea out - I'll certainly always view that hashtag rather differently in the future! The OED clarifies that it's mainly intended for couples with children - and I definitely see more logic in this - when you reach the point that far more planning is needed to get a night out with "just the two of you". The majority of those instagram posts don't appear to relate to this model - but I wonder whether this is as simple as again, people not feeling the need to apply a label to it, plus feeling the importance of actually focusing more on and enjoying the time with each other and no other demands than telling their "friends list" what a fantastic time they're having...?
It's pretty rare for MrEH and I to go out on a weeknight. There are several reasons why it tends not to suit us, but the most notable of those is that by the time we've both finished work and got home, it's usually after 7, and neither of us want to be out late on a night when the alarm is going to go off shortly after 6am the following morning to summon us for another day of daily grind. To be honest, much as we might enjoy going out, generally speaking, what we enjoy more on a weeknight is a chat about our day while curled up on the sofa, and a bit of time to be just "us" after a hectic day. All of the above though doesn't mean we don't spend time together - we always have right since we were first together, and perhaps that's part of it. We have ALWAYS made time to spend time together because we WANT to be with the other, we just take for granted that this is part of our lives together - it doesn't need drawing attention to, and I suspect an awful lot of others treat things in exactly the same way. We just do stuff, rather than advertising to the world that we're doing it and labelling it as something extraordinary. If you're doing the same, then really, I promise you, there is NOTHING wrong with that!
Robyn
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