Break Away From Your Boring Dating Routine With These Fun Date Ideas

Tired of the standard dinner and a movie date? AskMen has revealed some fun ideas that will get you out of that old routine and give dating the unique element you've been missing!

Ahh, dating . . . ain't it grand? The handholding, the kissing, the nervous tittering, the prolonged stares that signal either true love or unadulterated animal-style lust. It's like being a teenage all over again — except without all the sweat and bad acne.

In this modern era where an unassuming swipe of a finger can mean a date is set in motion, you're going to run out of fun date ideas for your potential soul/bed-mate pretty quickly.

Movies are too expensive, bars are too loud, and carnivals are terribly seasonal. So here are some date ideas for the refined couple who are ready to up their dating game and get into the 21st century and, eventually, make some babies.

Ladies love stationery stores. Seriously — and this isn't some kind of Mystery Method reverse psychology crap. Nice pens are sexy as hell and the notion of two people writing each other love letters is a lost romantic gesture that can be rekindled immediately upon entering one of these stores. Then, after the date, text your date the word "how are" and send a letter with the the word "you?" Mind = blown.

Don't Yelp, don't Google, don't FourSquare — don't use the name of an app as a verb — just walk. Get lost in your own city or town and find a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that sells incredible tacos for remarkably high prices and you can bond over leaving bad Yelp reviews. Bonus idea: If you find a literal hole in the wall, hide stuff in it — like your inhibitions.

It doesn't matter if you live in Brooklyn, New York or Brooklyn, MN. There's always something free going on somewhere and, honestly, the weirder the better. Remember: If it's a story that's worth telling your kids one day, it's an event worth attending. Scour Craigslist's "Events" section and click on the most bizarre postings — rap battle on the outskirts of town? Sure. A Hare Krishna breakdance session? Edible clay? Um . . . sure. Hell, hands down, the best guide to your neighborhood is through Reddit. There are subreddits for almost every state — even Connecticut. Use it to your advantage and find something bizarre. Maybe pass on the edible clay scene, though . . .

Dating isn't fun unless you know you're never going to see the person again. Seriously, imagine the kind of trouble you could get into if you knew the person you were seeing had no interest in you at all. Since most of us aren't that intuitive, make fun of dating by making fun of the date. Remember that insightful opening paragraph just now? Forget it. Go to a movie and make fun of it, go to a bar and ask for your finest bottle of cheapest wine — just don't take the setting seriously and you might accidentally pay attention to the person you're supposed to be paying attention to. Science.

If you're going the out-of-your-element route, find the weirdest punk show you can go to and dance till your ass falls out of your pant-legs. Man, there's just something about a driving bass line and screechy vocals that gets the juices flowing — the sexy juices. No, not those sexy juices, just some sexy fluids.

If you've lived somewhere your entire life — like, oh say Brooklyn, MN — you're going to get comfortable. Why take your date to the same old T.G.I. Friday's knockoff that you've taken all of your other dates before? It's campy, and nowhere will ever be as good as T.G.I. Friday's — not even T.G.I. Friday's is as good as T.G.I. Friday's. Anyway, go somewhere with meaning, because emotion is romance. If there's a little dumpy creek that makes your heart swell with joy because it's where you first discovered your love of edible pottery, take her there and regale her with the tale and revel in the creekside makeout sesh.

Take your Tinder match — or however the hell people meet these days — on your day-to-day. If it's a Sunday and some of your best social interactions have happened in a grocery store, go there. And can you pick up some one percent milk on the way home? The whole stuff make daddy gassy.

OK, bear with me on this one. It's been clinically proven by an out-of-work doctor that board games elicit the highest emotional response in the human brain. Have you even played a game of Monopoly before, bro? Those little hats and cats might as well be miniature guns — that's how frustrating board games can get. Of course, when you're playing with a foxy date rather than a sibling, angry emotions can quickly turn to sexy emotions. If you've never made sweet love on a Monopoly board before, be sure remove all the little houses and hotels before you do it. They can get stuck in weird places. (A friend told me that.)

So now that these fun date ideas have successfully made you think outside of the box and the box that was housing that box, you might be able to look into the mirror and say: "Hey [insert name], you're going to have a really dynamite date tonight!" And then you should thrust your fist in the air and declare yourself the finest modern lover since . . . Matthew McConaughey? Alright. Alright. Alright.

Visit AskMen for more date ideas.

— Brian Keaper

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