In January 2023, I decided to ask our then-occasional babysitter if she would feel comfortable agreeing to a standing date night. At the time it was every Wednesday evening in the 6:00-9:00 pm range. Standing date night adds about $200 to our monthly childcare expenses, but as the saying goes, it’s cheaper than divorce. 🙃
Over the past year and half, we’ve had an array of really great experiences and some very bad dates.
Good dates:
—Our date nights moved to Tuesdays this past fall, and there are several theater chains that run Tuesday movie specials. I honestly prefer to see movies by myself, but I’ve gotten over it and now happily share popcorn and Buncha Crunch with Jonny. In the lead up to Awards season, we saw a movie every other week, sometimes more frequently.
—Double dating is almost always good. Much has been written about being able to see your partner with kinder eyes, from another person’s point of view. The conversation is more varied, you’re looking more outward than inward. We’ve had great double dates at Pacific Standard, Too Soon, and Someday.
—Fancy dinners. Portland is absolutely spoiled with incredible restaurants, but sometimes the hospitality is severely lacking. We’ve had incredible food and service at Tusk, Scotch Lodge, Coquine, Murata, and Montelupo Market. I don’t have an extensive list here because once we find a place we like, we tend to go back rather than risk a new place.
—Gym nights. Our gym has childcare on-site, but it is nice to go without our toddler every now and then, especially because leaving is often a battle. Working out together is one of my favorite ways of spending quality time with my husband. He’s been teaching me basketball fundamentals since 2021, so we start with that, then play one-on-one, and then weight-train together. If it’s a date night workout, then we make time for the hot tub, too.
—One of my favorite sandwich shops in Portland is next to a metal bar that has karaoke on Wednesdays. We’ve only done this once, but it was really memorable to eat a sandwich, drink a Manhattan, and sing Loretta Lynn (my karaoke go-to is “You Ain’t Woman Enough To Take My Man”) in this setting.
—The most suburban thing we’ve ever done on date night is get pho and then go to Costco. At that point I’d only been to Costco a handful of times, so it was very exciting to me!
Bad dates:
—Any date that isn’t planned in advance. We were once spontaneous, but when paying a babysitter is involved, everything needs to be figured out ahead of time. We used to rotate who planned date nights, but now I do it because I enjoy it. If I can make a reservation, I will, no matter the popularity of the establishment or day of the week.
—Any date where I have more than two drinks. I love cocktails and wine, but on a school night, it just isn’t worth risking a hangover.
—Any date where we discuss household logistics. Total buzzkill/boner killer. We now handle those conversations over email and Google sheets.
—Any time we are late, either to the reservation or returning home to relieve our sitter. As previously mentioned, rushing is misery.
The only other thing I’ll say about standing date night is that it is one of the few occasions where I genuinely do have to take an outfit from day to night (as was promised to me by 90s and 00s magazines ), and I almost always do this by swapping out my shoes and more recently, switching my Baggu bag to a small leather handbag.
I did this for a stretch from the fall to early spring and agreed it was wonderful. So much easier to plan what to do with the night than find something fun _then_ try to secure an available sitter. On the nights we didn’t figure anything out we just played tennis together in the park and then ate a casual dinner after. The sitter we were using then moved away so we got out of the habit but I hope to bring it back this summer!