27 Sept 2020

Simon and I went out to dinner last night, and in between drinking red wine, commenting on the wait staff and updating each other on various medical issues, I started contemplating date night conversations through the years in relationships. This is my take on the issue 🙂

DNT (Date Night for Teens): What bands do you like? What movies/tv shows do you like?

DNYA (Date Night for Young Adults): What sports do you play, clubs you like, travel you’ve done?

DNU5 (Date night in relationship of under 5 years duration): plans for the future – engagement, wedding, travel, cars, how many children and what schools would we send them to. How much fun are we going to have being a family, how cute will our children be, the things we can do and places we can go.

DN5-10 (Date night in relationship between 5-10 years and AC – after children): sit there looking like prison escapees for first hour, furtively checking phones to make sure there hasn’t been notification about the children coughing – or setting fire to the house. Followed up by an hour or so of talking about the children, and nothing but the children.

DNPK (Date night in relationship with primary school aged kids): grand plans are made for the wonderful adventure that is date night, followed by two hours of reminding each other of appointments that need to be kept, who has to come home from work on time on what night to pick kid up from what sport, and which kid’s friend is having a birthday party and what we need to buy that kid for a present.

DNPT (Date night for parents of teenagers): sit there looking like prison escapees for entire date night, panicking about what the teenagers are getting up to, checking social media for hints about what they are up to, checking tracking apps to make sure they are where they are meant to be.

DNPYA (Date night of parents of young adults): spend time enjoying the wonderful experience of freedom, intending to spend date night discussing your next big travel adventure. But instead spend all the time discussing your children’s relationship statuses and work situations.

DNPOK (Date night of older kids in settled relationships): discuss potential for grandchildren. Discuss possible names for these mythical grandchildren, and agree on how good looking and smart these grandchildren will be – and how you will have a wonderful time looking after the grandchildren in between your marvellous travel plans.

DNYG (Date night of youngish grandparents): discuss how exhausting it is to look after active grandchildren, and then spend a good amount of time discussing your individual health concerns. Ignore people at other tables who are not quite as interested in discussions about your body parts. (This was us last night).

DNOG (Date night of slightly older grandparents): spend time discussing how wonderful your grandchildren are, how smart they are, and how their parents don’t appear to have enough energy. Agree that you should plan a big holiday very soon as long as it doesn’t impact on your ability to either have your knees replaced and eyes operated on – or your grandson’s little athletics carnival that you obviously need to go to.

DNGOGK (Date night of grandparents of older grandkids): take the grandkids with you (the poor things need a break from their parents). Understand nothing that they’re talking about, but still insist it was the best date night ever.