Surviving College Life

Posts filed under 'dating'

Fifteen Fun, Fabulous, Cheap Date Ideas

Living on a shoe-string budget doesn’t mean you can’t go on awesome dates-it just means you have to be a little more creative. : ) Here are fifteen of my favorite ideas for great dates that won’t break the bank:

Foodie Dates

1. Cook together. Shop for favorite pizza toppings & whip one up together, or use a recipe from Copykat Recipes (http://www.copykat.com/) to recreate your favorite restaurant fare.

2. Progressive dinner. Plan a meal with a few other couples. Everyone meets up at one house, has a course, and moves on to the next-all the way from appetizers to desserts!

3. Pizza for Dessert. Try throwing together a dessert pizza with a cookie dough or brownie base. Gather your favorite candies, fruits, and syrups for toppings and wing it, or follow this recipe.

Nostalgia Dates

4. Relive your childhood. Head over to an elementary school or playground for some swinging & tetherball, make chalk drawings on your driveway, and finish up the evening watching your favorite childhood cartoons and eating sugar cereal in a blanket fort.

5. First-Date Do-Over. Live your first date over again: Try to get the details as close to the first time as possible, and talk about how you each felt & what you remember most. (If your first date was a catastrophe, do it over the way you wish it went!)

6. Home Sweet Hometown. Visit one of your home towns, and show your sweetie the spots that are most important-or most fun-from your past.

7. Play Teacher. Teach your date something new-something you’re an old pro at and passionate about-and enjoy reliving your own learning process. Anything from skateboarding to painting, kickball and beyond. Be patient and make it fun (and if it goes badly, just make up for it with some ice cream at the end. It worked when you were a kid, didn’t it?).

Mixed-Up Timing Dates

8. Picnic in the Rain. Add the fun of a picnic to a rainy day by packing a lunch and eating in the car. Watch the rain come down & enjoy some hot soup or cocoa. If you’re feeling adventurous, go puddle jumping after. : )

9. Pajamafied. Make an ordinary activity goofier and more fun by adding pajamas to the mix. Catch a matinee movie in your PJs, or check around for local hangouts that offer pajama discounts (some Color Me Mine locations offer a 50% deal for pajama-wearers!).

10. Good Day, Sunshine. Break with the traditional sunset-watching date! Get up early, pack breakfast (cereal and a thermos of milk will do if you’re not a chef), and watch the sun come up.

Coffee & Culture

11. Ifs, Ands, and Buts. Pick up a question book (I like “If…Questions for the Game of Life“) and grab a coffee or two. Snuggle into a comfy chair at the shop and quiz swap questions.

12. Amusing Museums. Many museums offer free admission on certain weekdays. Check the calendar of your local one and go peruse the dino bones or modern art.

13. Local Literates. Stop by an open mic night or other event at a café or bookstore (search through Barnes & Noble’s events here) and see what local culture has to offer. If you’re feeling brave, you might even jump in for a spontaneous poem or song yourself.

14. In the Park. Fair-weather cities often offer summer series of free (or very low cost) movie screenings or concerts in local parks. Take a picnic or some beach chairs and settle in for some relaxation and hand-holding.

15. L’Artiste. Spend some time with some wonderful art-for free. Browse through local art galleries, check out your campus’s art department offerings, or scour the local paper for upcoming art shows or festivals, like Santa Barbara’s annual chalk arts festival.

photo: couple by Andrew C.

Add comment June 16th, 2008

Five College Relationship Mistakes you Might be Making

You probably don’t know that I got married when I was 21, just before starting my senior year of college (unless you’ve made it to my About page). That said, I have to admit that I had a lot of “ups and downs” dating during college—I made a lot of mistakes, went on some bad (and a few VERY bad) dates, and I spent my first two years of college single.

Now, I’m pretty sure most of you aren’t ready to get married, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to have a successful dating life. So here is my bare-all list of the biggest relationship mistakes I made, and why you should avoid them:

1. Don’t Date your Friends’ Ex. Seems like common sense, right? But it can be tempting! About six months after breaking up with my first boyfriend, I started dating my friend’s ex-boyfriend on the rebound. I asked her permission first, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt her and make her uncomfortable. Four years later I’m not on speaking terms with the guy, and I’ve had to rebuild bonds with my friend. Trust me, it really is a bad idea, just like everybody says it is.

2. Don’t Hope Someone in a Relationship Will Break it Off for You. When I was a freshman, a junior guy in my history class started flirting with me. He told me his girlfriend was studying abroad, and that they were “having problems.” The big clue here (which I missed)—he still had a girlfriend. If he was really unhappy, he would have broken up with her already—before he started asking me on study dates. We never went out, but I ended up just feeling stupid for even spending time studying with him.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Do the Asking. I probably would have dated a lot more if I had been brave enough to ask a guy out. Unfortunately, after a bad date in high school, I promised myself that I would never ask a guy out again—I would just wait until someone asked me. (Ironically, the only guy I asked out after that high school date ended up becoming my husband. Haha).

4. Don’t Judge Yourself Against other People. This is really, really hard to do, but having strong self confidence is important if you want to date fun, interesting people–like attracts like. So if your roommate goes out on tons of dates and you don’t, remember that it doesn’t mean anything about you. And if (ahem) one of your dates brings you home after only an hour and a half, make the most of it—go out with your friends and enjoy the rest of the evening!

5. Don’t Give In on Your “Value Rules.” Everyone has a different set of “value rules” for the people they date. For example, I don’t drink, so I decided not to date anyone who did. Of course just before I met my now-husband, this very charming guy who drank almost every night asked me out—and I almost went. I actually said yes and then canceled at the last minute. It wasn’t so much because he drank that I didn’t want to date him, but because he didn’t understand and respect why I didn’t drink—his inability to understand my values would have made it difficult to have a good relationship with him.

Well, now you know all the things I try not to talk about when I mention dating in college. I’ve had a lot of good dating experiences, too, but I really learned the most from the bad ones. The real question is which big mistakes I’ve missed in this post—care to share your thoughts? I’ll add the best ones to a later post.