Thursday 11 July 2013

Post Date Night Feedback

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 10 of 10

To round off this series of posts on date nights we’re going to take a look at the concept of getting feedback post-date night. I’m going to ask you to discuss how your date night went!

Now this sounds way more severe than it actually is! We’re not talking post-date meetings to give feedback with formal minute taking, agendas, feedback forms and actions. But it’s worth mentioning that at the very least you could have a conversation with your partner at some point the next day, for example, about how date night went. Did you both enjoy it? What was it that you enjoyed? What would you both like to do differently next time? etc.


If you didn’t quite get what you wanted on your date night then getting feedback will also help you discover what you can do next time to get closer to some of what you want at the end of the date. Now I know that having said this I’m contradicting what I said earlier about date night not being totally about you getting what you want at the end of it, but I’ll pretty much guarantee that that’s what will be on your mind at some point during date night, so if you haven’t had the success that you want this time, then go ask for the feedback for next time. Do it subtly though otherwise you may just as well come out and ask the rather direct question of “why didn’t we have sex last night?”, and that’s really not the greatest of direct questions to come out and ask!

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Going out date nights

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 9 of 10
Over the course of these posts on date nights we’ve covered loads of topics, but so far we’ve mostly covered ideas on ‘staying in’ date nights. In today’s post we’re going to cover some going out date night ideas.

Going out date nights
So then - going out or staying in, does it really matter? No, not really! The main thing is that you both commit to spending time together with no other distractions. If you remember that rule and that one alone then you’ll be off to a great start.

Let’s get going with today’s post and the ‘going out’ date night ideas…

1. Ideas for higher cost date nights:
  • The first and most obvious idea is for you to take your partner out to dinner at a local restaurant. Now it doesn’t necessarily have to be a fancy restaurant (fancy restaurants may help some of your partners feel well and truly pampered and spoilt though, whilst making other partners totally unable to relax due to the poshness of the whole occasion, you know your own partner best so my advise is to choose wisely and accordingly), but in the end anywhere will do, but just as long as you can both relax and talk easily.
  • Take a trip to see a show together (with dinner first perhaps?), relax and chat over drinks in the interval, and snuggle up together holding hands during the performance.
  • Cinema – go and see a romantic film (it really does need to be one that your partner wants to see as well though! i.e. avoid that totally blokey action movie that your partner is likely to hate), snuggle up at the back of the cinema, hold hands, kiss lots and generally be 16 again! Worth noting though that this one (and the show one too) aren’t ideal, because you don’t get the opportunity to talk, and therefore to connect, much.


2. Ideas for zero to low cost date nights out:
  • Go for a walk together; hold hands, enjoy a beautiful view, escape your house, take a picnic, randomly stop and snog, get a new perspective on things, go breathe some of that clever fresh air stuff. All that and you are getting some exercise too, perfect!
  • Eat dinner together at home (just the two of you ideally), but then have pudding and coffee at that local expensive restaurant instead.
  • Go take a trip down memory lane (preferably a nice memory for the both of you though!) - drive down it, walk down in or just visit it. Perhaps do a return tour of where you first met, drive by the first house you rented or owned together (talking about the romantic (or sexy!) things you did in each place), go back to the first place you kissed (and kiss there again), go back to where you proposed (and get down on one knee in a sillyish way and tell your wife you love her very much) or go to a view that you both love and watch the view!
  • Really want to go to the theatre, but simply can't afford it? Then perhaps find out where your local college or University is and if they have a drama department or theatre group. They might put on cut price shows and you can snuggle up at the back of their theatre instead of the super-expensive one.
  • Rather go to a grown up theatre production? But you've got kids and you can't afford both a babysitter and the price of a show? Then try a matinee performance whilst the children are at school (you've then set the day up well for a fine evening together later).
  • Laughter is both a great medicine and a great way to relax – so drop in on an open mic night at a local comedy club - it'll be way cheaper than going to see a top named comedy star. It might not be quite as 'laugh out loud', but you'll both be out of the house, having a giggle together, holding hands - and you never know - you might even get to see a brilliant comedy genius talent before they become famous, then you can brag about it later on in the decade.
  • Rendezvous in an exclusive hotel - you don’t need to book a room, both of you put on some fine clothes and stroll into the place like you own it, meet your partner at the bar at a pre-arranged time - the drinks might be mighty expensive, but it'll make you both feel great to be doing something a little bit different and may well rekindle those first date nerves and passions!

And if none of these are any good at all then try the ‘date nights in’ ideas from last week’s post.

3. Going out date night tips:
The following section will help you get the best out of your date night out…
  • If you’ve both still got children at home and are planning on going out on a date night, then you’ll quite obviously need to get someone to look after your children! Whether you are leaving them at home being looked after by someone else, or if you are taking your children to family or friends houses to be looked after then make sure that the person that you’ve left your children with is someone that your partner is happy with. Ideally avoid the local village nutcase, otherwise it’s unlikely that your partner will relax as much as you’ll need her to. Do the sensible stuff to ensure that your partner can relax, i.e. making sure that the person who’s looking after your children has your mobile phone number, your partners as well, and for example, if you are going out to a restaurant, the restaurants phone number. It’s also well worth getting it right in your babysitters head what would constitute an emergency that necessitated a phone call to you, then you won’t both get disturbed with non-urgent stuff.
  • If you’ve got a babysitter at home looking after your children then you could even go as far as pre-arranging with someone else that you trust (i.e. perhaps either yours or your partners parents) to act as the babysitters first point of contact if there is an issue. The benefit of this is that your partner isn’t sat there on date night with you on tenterhooks just in case the phone rings with a problem, because someone else is the first line of defence.
  • The thing that your partner sees as the seductive bit is that you’ve been thinking about her, about her pleasure, about what will help her relax, that you’ve gone out of your way to help her relax and that you’ve put in some effort. We’re talking the simple stuff here, nothing complex;
  • So… having arranged the babysitter.
    • Having booked the table at the restaurant.
    • Having helped your partner out with stuff that’s on her list of to-do’s so that she isn’t thinking of them whilst she’s on date night with you.
    • Having made sure that there’s a nice bottle of something sparkling (or similar) sat waiting in the fridge for you both when you get home, with two glasses in your bedroom ready and waiting.



That’s it for today. To round off the posts on date nights we’re going to look at date night feedback tomorrow! Yes, that’s right – feedback. Bear with it, it’s definitely a very useful thing for finding out from each other how date night worked for you both, so that you can either improve it for next time, or keep doing more of the same if it worked brilliantly this time.

Tuesday 9 July 2013

Date night conversations Part 2

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 8 of 10

7. Date night conversations continued…
In yesterday’s post we started to look at date night conversations, covering; some stuff to avoid, what you are trying to achieve with your date night conversations and some general tips. Today we’ll look at a series of conversation tips that are divided into the following three sections…

  • Conversation tips for early on in your conversation.
  • Tips for the middle of your date night conversation.
  • And finally what I call ‘later’ conversation tips.

The purpose of each set of tips are explained under its relevant section, but suffice to say the later ones are aimed more at seducing your partner and getting her mind into the right place. The tips are there to point you in the right direction for the sorts of questions that you can ask and also to help you for if your conversation goes a little dead.

Now - there are quite a few tips here, there’s a lot to remember and obviously you can’t go into your conversations armed with a bit of paper detailing exactly what you want to ask your partner, so can I suggest that you take the time and put in the effort to prepare for your conversations. Yes that’s right, I said “prepare”. Why? Because the one time you don’t want to have to think about what to say to your partner is when you are suddenly stuck for something to say. All that I’m suggesting is that by memorising one question from each of the three sections then you can bring that question out if at any point you need to kick start your conversation again. When you’ve used one of them, you can just come back here, learn another and then it’s ready for a time when you might need it.

Early
Early conversation suggestions – these are ideas to use early on in your conversation with your partner, ie at the beginning of your date night. These should at the very least start the conversational ball rolling…
  • Hobbies are always a great conversation piece. You’ll know exactly what your partners hobbies are, so you should be able to think of some questions about her hobby. Where’s she at with it at the minute? What’s the next thing that she’s going to do with it? etc. Hobbies that your partner had as a child is also a good one.
  • Start up a brand new hobby, and do it together, taking up gardening or growing your own vegetables, for example, might not sound that exciting on the face of it, but it will give you loads and loads of new things to talk about.
  • Ask your partner for her advice on something, ask for her support with something, ask for her thoughts on a topic you’ve been mulling over. This will also have the added benefit of showing her that you value her. If you’re not comfortable with this idea then hey, you could always pretend you’re valuing her opinion - but do try and make it believable!
  • Ask your partner “what shall we do for fun this weekend?”
  • Try asking your partner what she is thinking and what she is feeling (she might have asked you the same question countless times, so turn the table!)
  • Try complimenting and appreciating your partner, for example – you could tell her that she “looks nice in what she is wearing at the moment”, or “you looked nice when you walked in through the door from work”. Ask her more about the outfit she’s wearing / she wore to work that day. Where did she get it from?
  • If she’s made you a lovely dinner then tell her it’s delicious and then ask questions about it to show you that you care beyond the ‘thank you’ and ‘it’s very nice’. For example - ask her what she put into it to make it so nice. Just show some genuine interest.
  • If you both share a love of food then that very subject is a great conversation keeper upper – perhaps you’ve seen a new recipe that you’d like to try out for example, if so go talk about it with your partner, get the recipe out to show her.
  • We talked earlier about you listening out for ‘clues’ in what your partner is saying when she answers you in order to keep the conversation going. With that in mind then here are a few tips to ask having been given these ‘clues’ by your partner. So, for example, when your partner is talking about something you could ask her the following sorts of questions about the subject…
    • What about that do you love?
    • What about that makes you happy?
    • How do you feel about that?
    • What do you think about that?
  • The following are questions you can’t ask too often, but are also great conversation starters, as they will more than likely also give you lots of opportunities to ask other questions as a result of your partners answer…
    • Ask your partner what the best present that you've given her is – and when she’s finished tell her what the best present she’s given you is.
    • Ask your partner what have been some of the funniest moments you’ve had together.
    • Ask your partner what she would you give you if money were no object, and vice versa, what would you give her if money were no object.
    • Ask her who her favourite teacher was and why.
    • Ask her what her favourite three or four films are, and then this might lead neatly into discussing a film that you’ve heard about recently that you’d both like to go and see.
    • Ask your partner a question about success – that if she was “guaranteed success” in a venture what would she do? Then listen out for those vital clues to keep the conversation going in the answers that she gives you. There should be quite a few clues if your partner gives you good answers.
    • Ask her how she likes to relax (and it’s worth noting that you could learn a lot from the answers that she gives to help you).
    • Ask her what her perfect day would look like?
    • Who would play her in a film about her life?
    • Who would she most like to meet, living or dead?
    • Ask your partner what she’d most like to be remembered for? Bit heavy that one though!


Middle
Middle conversation tips. These are ideas to use once you’ve moved on a bit in your conversation, ie you need to have at least warmed the conversation up a bit first before you can use these…

  • Ask your partner what makes her happy?
  • Ask her what music she likes that she’s heard recently?
  • Talk about holidays that you've had together that have been really enjoyable. Talk about the best and worst holidays that your partner had as a child or just generally before she met you.
  • Ask her “where shall we go on holiday this year / next year?”
  • Get your partner talking about, thinking about and remembering all of the good stuff that she’s achieved in her life so far – this has the added benefit of boosting self-esteem.
  • You could ask about what your partner would like to achieve by the time she’s 40, 50, 60, 70, etc.
  • Talk about what you've done for each other that made each of you really happy.
  • Say to her “Remember when... (and then add the name of the event that you will both remember and enjoy talking about)”.
  • Tell each other what you appreciate most about each other.
  • Tell each other what you admire most about each other.
  • Laugh about the past, dream about the future and generally get inside her mind! Share your dreams that you both have for your future together. Find out what each others dreams and aspirations for your future together are. Go imagine a dream future together, where money was no object. Asking “what we’d do if we won the lottery?” for example, would get this sort of conversation off to a great start.
  • Think of three words that describe the best aspects of your partner's personality and share them with her.
  • Ask your partner “what do I do that makes you feel loved?” You should be able to learn a lot from this - so listen well and make mental notes for yourself about what questions you can ask her next as she gives you her answer.
  • Talk about some of the most romantic things you've done for each other.
  • Has your love for each other ever made you do strange things? Talk about what, where, when and why.
  • If you could give your partner anything in the world what are four things you would choose to give. And then hope that she asks you the same back in return!

Late
The tips in this section are ideas to get you both talking about things that will start to invoke the intense desire that you both had for each other in the early days of your relationship – re-ignite these feelings and you are well on your way. Don’t forget though that you can’t just launch straight into these, you’ve got to have warmed the conversation up properly first…

  • Talk about when you first met. When did you realise you were in love? How did you know? How did you tell each other that you were in love?
  • Talk about what your first impressions of each other were. What drew you both to one another? Who asked who out on a date, and what made you or your partner say yes?
  • What are the things that you find the most attractive about each other?
  • Reminisce about your first date, what you wore, what you talked about, talk about what first attracted you to each other, was it the way your partner said a particular thing to you, or was it what she wore, or the words she used, or the way that she flicked her hair, for example.
  • Talk about things that happened early on in your relationship - where you met, talk about how you met, what pub you went to first, your first kiss (and where you were for it), what did it feel like?
  • What have been some of the most romantic things you’ve done for each other?
  • Dust off the wedding album, grab out your wedding video, reminisce over the great day that you both had. This is some seriously powerful rekindling magic right there, sat waiting dustily on your bookshelf.
  • And it doesn’t just have to be your wedding album, grab out any old photo album and you’ve got a whole stack of reminiscing and conversation starters sat right there.
  • Ask your partner what makes her feel sexy?
  • Ask her what music she loves that gets her in the mood.
  • If it feels right you could also be going for some sexual double entendre’s at this point. Do test the water to see what happens though. If she’s moving towards you conversationally then you could keep it going, but if she’s moving away from you then do go careful. What you don’t want to do is to pressure your partner towards the bedroom too soon if she’s not in the right place.
  • What are some of the most memorable sexual moments you’ve had together. Where you first had sex for example! What are some of the most adventurous places that you've had sex? Talk about a fantasy that you’ve both got that you’d like to try out, just be careful that you don’t apply too much pressure in then expecting your partner to carry it out.
  • Tell your partner that she makes you feel good, tell her that her body really turns you on, or simply tell her that she turns you on. But do try to use these types of statements only when it’s appropriate to do so.

These sorts of conversation ideas are only the tip of the iceberg. There are loads and loads more possibilities, and all I wanted to do here was to get you started and to give you a few pointers in the right direction. Look out for a blog post to come soon with more conversation ideas.

In tomorrow’s post we’ll look at some going out date night ideas and tips. Thanks for reading..


Monday 8 July 2013

Date night conversations Part 1

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 7 of 10

Date night conversations

In yesterday’s post we looked at date night rules, today we move onto conversation - yes - that’s right, some date night conversation pointers to help you along your way. Why? Well, it’s simple really… during date night you’ll want to be…
  • Using dinner to communicate with your partner, to have a ‘nice’ close chat and a catchup.
  • Using your conversation to invoke those feelings of when you were first together, so that you can get those vital infatuation chemicals going again that you both had whizzing around your bodies when you first met.
  • Avoiding those same old conversations about “how was your day dear?”, “how are the kids?”, “who’s picking Gemima up from ballet on Saturday?”, etc. etc., I’m sure you get the drift…


Now I’m sorry to put the pressure on you – but dull conversation is not a good strategy for making your partner feel fuzzy duzzy lovely romantic thoughts towards you. So instead I’m going to point you in the right direction of some good ideas for effective conversations ie effective at reminding your partner about how lucky she is to have married / committed to staying with such a great conversationalist…


  1. So what are we trying to achieve with these tips? (ie why should you bother to keep reading?)
  2. Firstly you are trying to “chat up” your partner.
  3. With these conversation tips you are also trying to get her in the right place, to turn her on, to relax her - using words as foreplay.
  4. You are attempting to undertake some “sexy” conversations…
  5. …and getting some fun banter going between the two of you.
  6. You are stopping your conversations becoming mundane and boring (because mundane and boring isn’t going to have your partner thinking of fun bed based things to do with you).
  7. You are rekindling and bringing back earlier happy, loving, memories which should well help lustful thoughts come back up to the surface in your partner.


Let’s look first at some more general tips for good conversations…
  • Try and avoid closed questions if you can, they’ll only lead to very short ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. This also makes conversation sound more like you are interrogating your partner! Aim for questions that will bring some deeper answers back, these should be the ones that bring back those important ‘feel good’ emotions.
  • Instead ask open questions, ones that your partner can’t answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
  • Just listen to her! Perhaps there’s some stuff that she wants to get off her chest. If there is then she may just want to talk the issues out at you, and being a great listener is, believe it or not, also a great way to be a brilliant conversationalist. So let her talk! Its way easier to listen than it is to talk anyway, so be grateful for it too!
  • As your partner talks and answers your questions look for clues in what she is saying. All you’ve got to do is to listen really well to her! If, for example, you’ve asked your partner if she’s had a good day then let her talk the day out, listen carefully as she tells you what’s been going on in her day and you’ll pickup other things that you can ask questions about. “Oh I’m fine, it’s been a busy day, I took Johnny to the opticians at 10, and then when to visit my Mum in hospital at 11.30, and then I…” would obviously then give you the opportunity to ask ‘how her Mum was’ and ‘how Johnny’s eye test went’. Some of this stuff may be less than riveting for you, but it will allow you and your partner to continue in conversation without some horribly passion killing conversational pauses.
  • If you try and keep the conversation mainly about your partner then she should, in theory, quite like it. Go for conversation topics about things that you know that she gets excited about; her passions and hobbies for example.
  • With your conversation and your questions aim for making your partner feel good about herself. ie by complementing her as much as seems appropriate – but do make sure that you aren't going totally over the top.
  • With your conversations you’re expecting (and hoping) your partner to open up a bit, so give her something back by opening up a bit yourself as well. For your partners sake avoid giving her one or two word answers as well please. Opening up about passions that you are excited about will also change your tone of voice for the better, and will make your partner excited to be around you and to be listening to you.
  • Having said that do try not to talk about yourself too much! It’s very possible that you find yourself very, very interesting! and your partner will doubtless find you more interesting than most, she married you after all! But talking mostly about you may get somewhat dull for her no matter how much she loves and worships you. So if you’re thinking that you’ve been wittering on about you for far too long then say something like “sorry, I’ve been talking about me for ages, tell me…” then inserting a question that you have for your partner, perhaps from what she was talking about earlier for example.



That’s more than enough to remember and think about for today, in tomorrow’s post I’ll help you structure your date night conversations with some early, mid and what I call ‘later’ conversations tips. These should all help your date night go in exactly the direction that you’re looking for.

Sunday 7 July 2013

Date night rules

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 6 of 10
Hello and welcome to week 2 of the posts on date nights. Today we’ll be covering some date night rules! Why rules? Well, mainly to ensure that you get the best out of each and every date night, because they need to be a time for each other and absolutely nothing and no one else. So these rules are around you both agreeing that it’s okay to tell each other off (nicely mind) if you break the rules…

Let’s get started….

DATE NIGHT RULES

  1. Date night needs to be a regular, scheduled thing if your diaries allow it. Ideally once a week for a really good bit of relationship maintenance, but worst case once every two weeks.
  2. Discuss in advance when you can have date night with your partner. If one or both of your schedules are really hectic or you are away from home a lot, then you need to be super-organised. Plan your date nights like you would your business meetings, diarise them early. Sit down with your partner, diaries in hand, one or two months ahead of time if you have to, and plan the dates in amongst all the rest of your commitments. Once they are in there make sure that you stick with them and that heaven and earth are moved to ensure that they happen as planned.
  3. No friends or family round on date night, it’s just the two of you.
  4. No phone calls allowed (unless it’s a real emergency of course! But that’s obvious).
  5. No working allowed.
  6. No ‘fiddling about’ on your computers.
  7. No looking at your Blackberries, iPhones, etc., no surfing Facebook or Twitter or (add name of latest social media craze here) – switch the ruddy devices off and concentrate on each other for once.
  8. That goes for normal mobile phones too. Don’t let others disturb the precious time you have with your partner. Switching the phone off also has the added benefit of showing your partner that she is more important to you than any other work or personal phone calls or e-mails.
  9. Be pleasant and respectful towards your partner throughout date night, and have good table manners, remember all of the “stop it” and “start it” now’s if you can. You are looking to romance your partner on date night, and being pleasant and respectful are definitely two ‘must do’ ground rules.
  10. Remember that to do list that’s whirring round and round in your partners head?, well, you’ll need to get used to the fact that you’ve got to help clear her checklist for date night in order to get the best out of it. You could ask your partner the night before if there’s anything that you can help her with or if there’s anything on her list that you can remove for her and do yourself so that she can relax properly with you.
  11. Try your best not to discuss topics that will send sexual vibes plummeting earthwards at hyper speed – avoid topics such as decorating your home or who's going to pickup the kids after ballet at the weekend like the plague! If you need some help with this then tomorrows post on conversation tips should assist you greatly…
  12. Look into your partners eyes regularly when you are sat across from her (remember not to do it in a nutter / crazed look in your eyes kind of way - instead look lovingly into her eyes when you are sat across from her at date night or simply when you are sat talking and snuggling with her.
  13. Go careful of drinking too much on date night. Drink moderately, otherwise it will either make you or your partner fall asleep too early or it could potentially annoy one or both of you, especially if one of you has gone to a whole load of effort to put your date night together. Having said that though a drink or two can help to relax you both, and relaxing is essential for a great date night.
  14. Do lots of kissing throughout date night, kissing will more than likely be really important to your partner and it’s one of those key ways to get your partner feelings nice and close to you. Start your kisses light and cheeky and build up slowly to the whole full on snogging thing.

Not really rules as such, but

  • Don’t wait until the end of date night to start touching, for example try these…
    • Give her a light peck on the cheek when you settle down for date night.
    • Touch her hands and arms lots during your date (but do try and do so subtly).
    • You can lightly graze her legs with yours, then move slowly and subtly on to playing footsie under the table with her, this has to be done at the right time and not too early though.
  • If you’ve chosen foods that you can feed each other – then do so! Done right this can be very seductive, and yes, that includes if you are both in a restaurant, who really cares what the other punters think? You can always use your fork to feed your partner rather than your hands if you want to tone it down a bit.
  • The less your partner is expecting big romantic gestures in your date night preparations the more likely she is to enjoy them. So go for a little secrecy until the last minute!
  • When you are sat down with your partner having a drink, connecting, at dinner - clink your glasses together and propose a toast, say something intimate when you are clinking glasses together. Use it as an opportunity to get across a nice, loving connection (through the use of sweet, romantic words [yes I said sweet]) between you both. Use words that will make your partner feel good. Need some help with the sort of words that you’d use?
    •  “I feel very lucky to be with you”
    • “I love you very much”
    • “You make me very happy”
    • “I never dreamed I'd ever meet anyone as lovely as you”
    •  “I don’t want to be with anyone else, ever”
  • This next idea you’d have to do subtly if you wanted to try it - but it might at least help to get your thought patterns into the right place for date night; treat your partner as if you were on a first date with her, as if she were a new woman in your life. This might return those first date nerves and fears, but should get you in the right place trying to impress her. Both of you could be in on it to give it a try. You never know, it might actually turn out to be quite good fun!
  • Whilst you’re at the supermarket picking up for the food for your date night think about the next morning as well; you could serve her breakfast in bed with a themed twist; a French breakfast for example, with croissant, Pain Au Chocolat, Une Café Aux Lait and all served with a French kiss! This would also work if you were having date night that evening, ie start her day off with a little luxury and continue it when you get home at night as well.
  • Without fishing for compliments from your partner make sure that she knows that you’ve gone out of your way to romance and relax her on date night. Your partner should be able to clearly see this through your preparations, rather than you telling her point blank that “I’ve gone out of my way for you”! What your partner will see as the seductive bit is that you’ve put the effort in and that you’ve been thinking about her before you’ve even got home. And if you’ve put the effort in there, then she’ll put some effort in elsewhere…
That’s quite enough rules! and also the end of today’s post. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at some conversation tips to really help your date night flow beautifully.

Thursday 4 July 2013

Date night in ideas

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 5 of 10

In this series of posts on date nights so far we’ve looked at:

  • Some helpful stuff on how you can best prepare for your date night…
  • Making sure your house is in a good, relaxed, calm place and…
  • Food and drink ideas for your date night
  • How to prepare your partner well for date night, making sure that she’s in a really great, relaxed place.
  • How to make sure that you are well prepared and looking and smelling great for a brilliant date night.

In today’s post we’ll look at some ideas for a great date night in…

Ideas for date night:

  • The most obvious date night in idea is of course the very traditional dinner with your partner sat at your kitchen or dining room table. There’s nothing wrong with this whatsoever, it’s a great place where you and your partner can relax together without her worrying about what she’s wearing or who’s looking at her or what the waiter thinks of you both or how much it’s going to cost you both, ie it can just be the two of you to concentrate on.
  • Having had dinner watch a romantic film together, do try and make it one that she’ll actually enjoy and want to watch though! Perhaps rent the first film you ever watched together, it’ll bring back those first date nerves and passions. Give imdb.com a go for ratings and reviews, and perhaps check in with her first to see if she approves of your choice. I’m sure you don’t need telling that the wrong film will more than likely be a total passion killer.
  • Have a cinema night in; turn your sofa into the back row of the cinema, make a load of popcorn (not so much that she'll feel really bloated afterwards having snaffled the lot though!), buy or rent a romantic, sexy film to snuggle up to together. See our post on “Erotic media” for some really film ideas.
  • Have a bath together (give your partner the non-tap end!); take strawberries, olives, etc. and of course some sparkly drink stuff, etc. to the bathroom with you, setup loads of candles and whack in the nice smelly bath bubbles. There are some great ideas for nibbly foods and drinks in Tuesday and Wednesdays posts.
  • Have dinner and then go and snuggle in bed together, or have a nibbly picky dinner in bed together. It’s warm there, she’ll relax and you’ll be in exactly the right place for later on. Just make sure you both eat lightly, otherwise she could feel so totally put off the idea of anything more having completely and utterly stuffed your faces! Once you’ve eaten go have a read of some erotic fiction together. This will help get your partner in the mood and will invoke those chemicals that you first had flying around your bods at the infatuation stage of your relationship. See our post on “erotic media” for some ideas.
  • None of that floating your boat? Okay then… think about the different places around your house that you could use to have your date, you don’t have to sit at your dining room table or slouch out in front of the TV in your lounge, instead surprise her with one of these ideas, they’ll increase the sexiness and excitement of doing something together that you don’t normally do…
    • If you’ve got a garden then you’ve got the perfect date location, it’s almost like going out! Grab some candles (the garden ones will probably be best, or storm lanterns if it’s that bit windier), lay out a rug and feed each other yummy nibbly foods and sparkling wine or champagne. A splendid seduction technique! See Tuesday and Wednesdays posts for some tips on food and drink.
    • If you haven’t got a garden then perhaps you possess a balcony? If so what a splendid, and really different place to use for your date. Don’t just grab the rug and the candles, grab a load of cushions as well, lie out, cuddle in and enjoy the view whilst idly chatting the night away. Just try not to set light to your cushions, bit of a passion killer that one.
    • Your lounge floor could be another possibility? You’ll need those rugs and those cushions again, and, if you’re lucky enough to have an open fire or a log burner then place the rug in front of it, light it up and go for it. The heat and the dancing flames will do wonders for the whole romantic ambience thing.
  • And finally - let’s end on an idea which starts with a ‘don’t’… It would be somewhat advisable to switch off the TV for anything other than that lovely romantic film, or if you absolutely must watch TV then watch something that’ll make you both laugh and relax. Normal, dull, everyday TV can be a real passion killer with its adverts every 5 minutes, and the constant arguments on reality TV or the depressing reality of the news! Instead; sitting down on your sofa, snuggling up and chatting with the TV switched to the ‘off’ position is best for helping you both connect with each other through words and some of that lovely staring deeply into each others eyes stuff.

That’s it for today, in tomorrow’s post we’ll be covering off some date night rules! Sorry, yes, rules. Why? Well, mainly to ensure that you get the best out of each and every date night, because date night needs to be a time for each other and absolutely nothing and nobody else. More tomorrow.

Preparing you and your partner for a great date night

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 4 of 10

In this series of posts on date nights so far we’ve looked at:
  • Some helpful stuff on how you can best prepare for your date night…
  • Making sure your house is in a good, relaxed, calm place and…
  • Food and drink ideas for your date night

Today we’ll get to how to prepare well for date night…

Preparing you and your partner!
First, how to prepare your partner (bear with it and read on, this sounds odder than it actually is!)

Your partner
Yes, you need to prepare your partner well for date night! Try the following to get her into the right place for a really great evening together …
  • Run her a bath and make sure that she spends the time luxuriating in it whilst you prepare dinner for you both.
    • Have a glass of something alcoholic; perhaps wine, champagne or sparkling wine waiting for her on the side of the bath.
    • If you’ve got children at home still then whilst she’s in the bath make sure that they know that its “mummy” time and that she is not to be disturbed.
    • Remember that bubbles in the bath and candles round the edge of it will go down really well for showing her that you’ve made every single possible bit of effort for her to relax and enjoy her quiet time.
    • Try a bath bomb or perhaps rose petals sprinkled into the water to get her senses going early on in the evening.
  • If you’ve got time during your dinner preparation perhaps you could…
    • Offer to wash her feet whilst she’s in the bath. If she’s okay with you touching her feet and isn’t totally ticklish there then she’ll more than likely find it exquisitely relaxing and intensely luxurious.
    • Sit with her and catch up whilst she’s luxuriating in the bath.
    • Or offer to wash her hair or her back.
  • When she gets out of the bath, and again if you’ve got the time during your dinner preparation, you could offer to dry her and / or rub moisturiser in afterwards.
  • And of course do make sure that you’ve done everything that you can to ensure that your partner can be as relaxed as possible during date night by doing the stuff under the ‘House’ topic in Mondays post.

You
And of course we can’t leave you out of it either I’m afraid, you need to prepare well in order to impress your partner still…


  • Whether you are going out or staying in your partner needs to see that you’ve made some sort of effort for date night, ditch the baggy, holey jeans or scruffy paint splattered overalls in favour of something smarter – even if it’s just a decent pair of jeans that fit you well and a t-shirt. It doesn’t have to be much, just show her that you made an effort to tart yourself up a bit for date night - be visually pleasing to her and make sure that she’s reminded why she bothered with dating (and, if applicable! marrying) you in the first place!
  •  Be clean, don’t be Mr. Stinky – have a shave, have a wash if you need to, apply your nice, new, decent deodorant – and review our posts on ‘self-improvement’ if you need more reminders.
  • Clean your teeth, don’t have stinky breath for date night.
  • Apply the nice, new cologne you purchased in order to smell yummy for your partner.

That’s it for today, and it’s the final post of the week tomorrow, so to round off we’ll look at some brilliant little date night ideas.

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Sensuous foods and drink

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 3 of 10

In yesterday’s post we looked at food for your date night, a super important, romantic, seductive part of your date night if you are ‘eating in’. Today we continue the food theme, looking this time in more detail at some sensuous foods and drink ideas…

Sensuous foods and drink
Here are a few food ideas to get you thinking along the right path for your date night food and drink choices…

  • Fruits such as grapes, strawberries (especially dipped in some decent dark 70% chocolate!), in season plums, figs, mangoes or any berries are all lovely luscious fruits that you can both get all sticky sharing and feeding each other with.
  • Chocolate (ideally with a high % cocoa value) on its own in bar form, or as a chocolate mousse (a seriously sensual pudding). Eating chocolate has been linked with the release of serotonin in the brain which is thought to produce feelings of pleasure. Go grab you and your partner some, but make sure that you don’t both have too much, otherwise you risk your partners feelings of guilt at how much choc that she’s eaten kicking in.
  • Olives, lovely to feed each other.
  • Oysters! But these come with a warning that they might not be for everyone – do check with her first as she may well be really repulsed by the very idea!
  • Brazil nuts or cashews.
  • Cheese, especially soft cheeses, doubtless your partner will have her favourites, so go and check with her first to find out what she likes.
  • Asparagus, and possibly artichokes.
  • Champagne - on its own, and most especially pink champagne. This will go down very well, and, obviously the more you are able to pay, the better quality you’ll get. Nothing like a touch of luxury to make your partner feel special, and worth every penny that you spend.
  • Champagne and brandy cocktails are also very sensual, but watch out for drinking far too much and your partner getting so drunk so quickly that she passes out super speedily.
  • Above all think simple nibbly, easy to pickup foods; for example a salad of fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella would work well – it tastes great, its quick and easy to prepare and the basil has an alluring aroma which can have a warming effect on the body and promotes circulation. All good stuff.
  • And of course you can also ask your partner what her favourite dish or dishes are!
  • And if all that fails then there’s good old Google; search on ‘romantic foods’ or ‘valentine’s day recipes’ to get back many 100’s of great ideas.

In tomorrow’s post we’ll look at how to prepare for date night. This sounds weird and rather odd I know, but by prepare I mean things like making sure that your partner is in a great, relaxed, romanced place in preparation for a really great date night.

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Date Night Food

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 2 of 10

Yesterday we started off by looking at some helpful stuff on how you could best prepare for your date night, then we covered how to make sure your house is in a good place. Today we’re looking at some food ideas for your date night in dinner…

Food preparation
Before we get going let’s have a quick look at some tips on preparing for your date night dinners…


  • Ideally date night would be a night off for your partner, especially if she always does the cooking. So have a think about the food that you are going to cook on date night well in advance. Plan what you are going to make, what ingredients you need, where you are going to get them, when you are going to get them and when you need to start prepping the food. A meal that you’ve made yourself is a great way to seduce your lover!
  • Totally scared of cooking or completely rubbish at it? Okay fine, then you could LEARN! Surprise your partner a bit. If you don’t normally cook then only a disaster which totally burns your kitchen to the ground will mean a disappointed partner because she’ll be really pleased that you made the effort for her.
  • Don’t have the time for all that cooking malarkey? Okay then - go buy a luxury meal you can just throw in the oven at home instead. She'll still appreciate the fact that you went to the effort of choosing the meal, switching the oven on, unwrapping the meal, laying the table, etc.
  • When you are thinking about what to make or buy think light sensual foods and small portions. Why? Because feeding your partner too much food and making her full will totally put her off of any thoughts on intimacy with you, that’s why!
  • If you are doing the cooking then make sure that on the day, or if possible the night before, you cook as much as you are able to beforehand so you can spend as much time with your partner as possible during your date night. What you really, really want to avoid is you spending half the night cooking for your partner leaving her sat there twiddling her thumbs waiting for you.
  • Do try and match the wine to the food, there’s so much help out there in books, on the web, in apps, on the back of wine bottles, in recipe books, etc. that will help you with this that it’s not a difficult thing to do and it shows your partner that you’ve made that extra little bit of effort that she’s worth.
  • Whatever food and drink you choose you should also try not to introduce too many different tastes to the table. This could potentially be really overwhelming for your partner.
  • As you are cooking keep clearing away, it’ll make the clearing up exercise when you are done much quicker and your partner won’t look at the mess and immediately add it to her mental to do list. It’s so easy just to keep the dishwasher open to shove stuff in, or to keep a bowl or sink full of soapy water on the go to quickly wash something and shove it on the draining board as you go.
That’s it for today, in tomorrow’s post we continue with the food theme, concentrating on sensuous food and drink.

Monday 1 July 2013

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night

Planning the Perfect Romantic and Seductive Date Night – Part 1 of 10

For this week and next week’s posts we’ll focus on date night, these are neither a new or a revolutionary concept, but they are mighty important for a great relationship. Let’s look first at what a definition of “date night” might be…

Date night is a scheduled ‘date’ with your partner where you both spend time together, just the two of you, relaxing and stopping, with no external interruptions so that you can spend quality time with each other to re-connect.

So why is having a regular date night such a good idea? Well… done right a well planned and executed date night will…

  • At the very least get you closer and more connected to your partner.
  • Give you both a great weekly ritual to get into, and rituals are really good for your relationship.
  • It keeps your relationship in a really great place by keeping you dating. Now, if we can just equate a male – female long term relationship to the process of fly-fishing for a moment!... Whilst you can just ‘hook’ your partner in with your first dates and a marriage proposal and leave it at that it’s going to be hard to maintain a relationship that’s got ‘zing’ to it unless you keep on doing that ‘hooking and reeling process’ to bring her back in to you! If that makes no sense to you whatsoever then let’s put it this way – you’ve got to keep on making an effort in your relationship – you can’t just make the assumption that once you’ve ‘hooked’ your partner that she’s going to stick around and be happy with you forever just because you both got married! You’ve got to keep on putting that effort into your relationship, and a regular date night is one great way to put that effort in.
  • A key aim of date night is to get your partner relaxed, and once your partner starts to relax she should, in theory, start to become putty in your hands...
  • If you spend too long sloping and slouching about the same house doing the same thing with your partner every day and every night the entire time then your interest in each other will quite potentially wane.

Let’s take a quick look at how the next couple of weeks’ worth of blog posts on this subject will work…

Monday
Today we start by looking at some helpful stuff on how you can best prepare for your date night and we’ll finish off todays post with how to make sure your house is in a good place (I don’t mean physical location! I mean it’s in a great tidy place!).

Tuesday
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at food for your date night, a super important, romantic, seductive part of your date night if you are ‘eating in’.

Wednesday
We continue with the food theme, concentrating on this post on sensuous food and drink.

Thursday
On Thursday we’ll look at how to prepare for date night. This sounds weird and rather odd I know, but by prepare I mean things like making sure that your partner is in a great, relaxed, romanced place in preparation for a really great date night.

Friday
And to round off the week we get to some brilliant little date night ideas.

Monday
To start week 2 we’ll look at some date night rules. Sounds serious, yes, but its more about making sure that you both stick to some ground rules so that you can both fully enjoy and concentrate on making sure that you’ll have a great date night, stuff like switching off your Blackberry will be covered here.

Tuesday
On Tuesday of next week we’ll get to some date night conversation ideas, there’s no point in doing all of that preparation if your conversation falls flat on its face, so in this post we’ll look at some conversation ideas and questions to make sure that you are both connecting well through conversation. If you’ve ever found yourself not knowing quite what to say to your partner next then you’ll love this post.

Wednesday & Thursday
On Wednesday and Thursday we look at some ideas for date nights out, followed by looking at some going out date night tips to help you get the best out of each date night.

Friday
Date night feedback! Yep, that’s what we said - post-date night feedback! In the final post on this topic we’ll cover some thoughts around discussing how you can make sure that date night keeps getting even better with your partner!

Enough about what we are going to do… let’s get going with the good stuff…

Preparing for date nights in:
So let’s look at some tips on preparing for a perfect date night in, because there are some things you’ve really got to do to ensure that your partner can relax at home.

We’ll split the preparing for date nights in section into 5 separate bits, which will run over the course of the next few blog posts, and starting with “house”!…

1. House
Your house to be exact! Let’s look at how you can prepare your date location to ensure minimum distraction for your partner from the normal trappings of home, kids, their toys, etc…


  • You can help your partner to relax by keeping your house tidy generally, but especially leading up to date night. Then on date night itself you can do even more to make certain that there as few a distractions as possible for your partner. Why is this important? Because if there is loads of clutter around from your normal everyday lives together then this will only remind her of what should be going onto that to do list in her head “oh look there’s some more children’s toys, I must put those away, oh dear and the washing up needs to be done, oh yep, I can hear the washing on its spin cycle, that’s just reminded me of how much washing there is still left to do this week”, etc. etc. Not good to help your partner relax.
  • If you can’t go out (some ideas for going out date nights in next weeks posts though), then you can still turn your home into a gorgeous five star restaurant and country retreat…
    • At your dinner date table apply a plain white tablecloth, if you haven’t got one then go buy one, surprise your partner, do remember to take the measurements of your table before you go shopping though.
    • Prepare a handwritten menu of the dishes you’ve chosen to cook for your partner. It will show her that you’ve made that extra bit of effort and that you’ve made that extra bit of effort to make it look as though you’ve taken her out for the night.
    • Have some water in a nice jug or in a bottle on the table.
    • Set candles on the table, and maybe also throughout the room that you are sitting in. Candles can be very romantic and are definitely your best friend so go and buy a load!
    • Make your bedroom a place for romance; tidy up, pickup your pants, open the window for a bit to let some fresh air in, clear your bedside table of your FHM magazines, change the bed sheets, a nice smelling bed to leap into will really help matters, change them yourself and perhaps you could even wash them yourself too.
    • Put the cushions straight in your bedroom and lounge, sweep or hoover floors in the rooms where your date will be taking place.
    • When you are ready to go to bed set candles throughout your room – do go careful though - don’t light them till you get in there and you can supervise them!
    • And if you remember nothing else then apply the general rule of making everywhere look calm, tidy, grown up and relaxed – and you’ll be in the right place for a great date night in.
  • Appeal to your partners sense of smell:
    • Go buy an oil burner or some incense and make your date room smell lovely. Go buy essential oils such as cinnamon, musk, jasmine, patchouli, rose, sandalwood and vanilla - these, apparently, stimulate the release of neurochemicals which trigger sexual response in your partner. Not convinced? Go on, if nothing else it’s worth a try isn’t it?
    • If you can’t afford a burner then try putting a drop or two of aromatherapy oil on a light bulb or perhaps put some drops into a bath that you’ve run for her. Scented candles can also be a cheaper alternative to a burner and all those expensive essential oils.
  • If your partners been asking you to get stuff done in your bedroom for the past two years, such as hanging some pictures on the wall, then go get on with it.
  • Turn the volume down, or better still switch it off altogether, on your answerphone and your bedroom phone. It can pretty much immediately shatter the mood if either your mother or her mother calls and leaves a long and rambling message on your loud answerphone!
  • If you’ve still got children living at home – then make sure that as much as possible you aren’t going to get disturbed during your date night. Getting them into bed at a reasonable hour or making sure that they know that its ‘Mummy and Daddy’ time for example.
  • Help your partner relax and get her into the mood by appealing to her hearing sense; have music on in the background whilst on your date and it will absolutely get things going in the right direction. Do remember to choose something that you are both going to enjoy however, don’t choose something that’s going to totally put your partner off. Ideally go for music that doesn’t have words, as this helps the brain to switch off from the outside world…
    • Beethoven’s 5th
    • Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
    • Enya
    • Kenny Rankin
    • Maybe you both have a favourite song, or an album that has emotional associations with it? One that could invoke memories from when you were first together, a particular song that you both liked for example. Ask your partner what music she likes and have her preferences at the ready on your CD or MP3 player.
    • Artists such as Barry White or Marvin Gaye, especially his track “Sexual Healing”, have tracks that are quite suggestive though, so it’s best to put these on at the right time (ie later on in your date when things look a little bit more likely to go in the direction you might like them to go in).
  • Some more music ideas…
    • Keep the volume on the music quite low, you really don’t want to have to shout to your partner to be heard!
    • Music with slow beats or rhythms are best for relaxation purposes.
    • You could choose some music with your partner as part of your date, or perhaps if you were out shopping with her earlier in the day you could browse and buy music together. Or if you can’t go out to browse the music shops browse iTunes and download the music instead. Sites like Amazon MP3 also have samples of tracks on there to listen to.
    • All of this sensory “stuff” let’s your partner know that her work day, or indeed her day with the children, has ended, and it will really, really help her get into the right place for romance with you.
Tomorrow we’ll look at some food ideas for your date night in dinner…