Date ideas
20 Things to Do With Your Partner at Night Besides Watching TV
The best things to do with your partner at night besides watching TV are small, repeatable and need no planning: play a two player card or board game, cook something new together, take an evening walk, color or sketch side by side with music on, read aloud, do a puzzle, or ask each other real questions. Couples who ask this online say the trick is not finding a perfect activity. It is swapping just two TV nights a week for something you do together.
For a calm screen light evening ritual, Lovla turns one of your photos into a coloring page you color together and keeps it in your shared journal.
Why do so many couples ask this?
Threads asking what couples do between dinner and bed gather hundreds of replies in communities for married people, Gen X couples and UK households. The pattern is the same: after work everyone is tired, the TV goes on, and weeks pass without a real conversation.
The answers that get the most agreement are simple, cheap and done at home. Nobody suggests anything elaborate on a Tuesday.
20 things to do at night instead of TV
Most of these take under an hour and cost nothing.
- Play a two player card game like gin rummy or cribbage
- Pull out a board game made for two
- Cook a recipe neither of you has tried
- Take a twenty minute walk around the neighborhood after dinner
- Color or sketch side by side with a playlist on
- Read the same book and talk about a chapter each night
- Read aloud to each other in bed
- Work on a jigsaw puzzle that lives on the table all week
- Ask each other a few deep questions over tea
- Have a living room picnic on a blanket
- Bake something simple and eat it warm
- Do a short stretch or yoga video together
- Make a playlist for each other and take turns explaining songs
- Plan your next trip or weekend, even if it is just a day out
- Play a cooperative video game on the couch
- Take a bath or shower with candles and no phones
- Look through old photos and tell the stories behind them
- Write a letter to your future selves to open next year
- Try a new hobby for a month, like pottery kits or knitting
- Sit outside, look at the sky and just talk
Which evening activity fits your energy?
Match the idea to how tired you both are tonight.
| Energy level | Try this |
|---|---|
| Exhausted | Reading aloud, coloring, a playlist on the couch |
| A little tired | A card game, a puzzle, looking at old photos |
| Normal | Cooking something new, an evening walk, a board game |
| Restless | Baking, a yoga video, planning a trip |
How do you break the TV habit without making it a chore?
Do not ban TV. Pick two nights a week that are screen light and keep the rest as they are. Put the remote in a drawer on those nights so the default changes.
Keep supplies visible: cards on the coffee table, a puzzle on the dining table, colored pencils in a jar. Couples are far more likely to play a game when it is already out.
What if you are in a long distance relationship?
Most of these work on a video call. Cook the same recipe, read the same chapter, play a phone game or color together while you talk.
In Lovla you can turn a photo of the two of you into a coloring page and color it together even when you are apart, then keep it in your shared journal.
How do you make it stick?
Write five ideas from this list on slips of paper and put them in a jar. On your screen light nights, pull one and do it, no debate.
After a month, keep the two you both looked forward to and replace the rest.
Make a little more time for us.
For a calm screen light evening ritual, Lovla turns one of your photos into a coloring page you color together and keeps it in your shared journal.
Written by The Lovla Team. Find current product and access details on Lovla’s App Store page.