Date Night, Hollywood Style

Ah, summer! The sun is warm, the days are long and languid, and it has three holidays. It’s a season tailor made for spending time with the one you love, focusing on each other, and building intimacy.

While there’s nothing wrong with going to all those old familiar places, like the summer-only deck of your favorite restaurant, your time might be better spent mixing it up a little. That’s because familiarity and desire don’t always coexist happily. Couples often have to fan those flames, and the right kind of date night can help.

This summer, try applying Hollywood’s 80/20 formula: 80 percent familiar (girl meets boy) and 20 percent novel (girl happens to be a mermaid).

Choose something that the two of you have done and enjoyed in the past, but add a little (or big) twist. We’ll get you started.

• If you like the theater, go see a contemporary performance art. Better yet: Take an improv class together. What you learn there will be useful in all of life, not just your relationship, and at the very least, you will share a few laughs.
• If you like movies, go to a drive-in. Better yet: Make your own movie short using the camera on your smartphone. You don’t have to be a budding Martin Scorsese. Do a send up of a scene that you like from your favorite movie or TV show.
• If you like to shop, go to thrift stores. Better yet: Spend a morning going to garage sales. You’d be surprised at what you learn about your beloved—and maybe even by what you remember about yourself.
• If you like to play games on your smartphone (Candy Crush, anyone?), go retro by playing three-dimensional Scrabble or backgammon. Better yet: Pair the game with a bottle of wine and some cheese and turn it into a picnic.
• If you like living a little on the edge—speeding, breaking rules, disobeying authority, in general—go parking, or go commando. Better yet: go skydiving. Commando.

Whatever it is you like to do as a couple, give it some spin, a kick in the keister. If nothing else comes to mind, try Phil and Claire’s trick. The Modern Family couple occasionally adds zing to their date night by pretending to be “Clive” and “Juliana,” two people who leave their responsibilities behind for a night of passion with “a stranger.” It may be the most ingenious solution of all to the love/desire dilemma.

Will some of this make you uncomfortable? We certainly hope so! Novelty—doing something you haven’t done before—involves risk, which leads to excitement, and can rekindle desire. It’s already July. How will you spend the rest of the summer?