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A date is a fluid concept. For some, it may mean a full dinner and activity. For others, it’s any planned time spent with a person you’re romantically involved with. Some people just have no idea. And while you should never stop going on dates regardless of the length of your relationship, the type of dates are going to evolve. As is the conversation. What you talk about on your first date is not what you talk about when you’ve been married for fifteen years. But what should you talk about? Well, I’m here to tell you.
First date
Congrats on securing the elusive first date, player. As romance goes, this date is the bottom of the list. The first date is basically an interview to see if someone checks enough boxes or is compatible enough to warrant more dates. Conversation topics can range from surface level to deeper, but it will likely still be more casual. Topics can include a rough overview of each other’s life history, future plans, family, friends, fun stories, and jokes. Keep it light, and keep it fun. You should show some depth and opinions, but don’t talk about anything that will bum anyone out.
First three months
Three months doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but in the beginning of a relationship, it encompasses a lot of different phases. You’ll go from second and third dates, to dating, to talking, and maybe even to being exclusive. This is when you really find out who the other person is, and this is the time to talk about everything under the sun. Politics, religion, personal philosophy, wants, needs, fears, desires, what you like in bed, what you don’t like in bed, etc. Nothing is off limits. If you don’t show your true self during this stage, what’s the point of going on dates? Figure out who each other are.
3 – 12 months
Honeymoon period, baby. You’re in the fucking love zone. This is when you find out how serious this relationship is. You’ll tell each other you love each other for the first time, and then spend the rest of this time constantly telling each other how much you love each other. Sure, everyone else hates you for it, but who cares. You’re in love. When you go on dates, you ask about each other’s day, and then you actually listen to the response. You tell stories they’ve never heard and secrets you’ve never told anyone else. You’ll play the “tell me something about yourself I don’t know” game, and you’ll canoodle in the corner booths at bars just listening to each other talk. Gross.
1-4 years
It’s time to shit or get off the pot, lovebirds. You know most everything there is to know about each other, and now you need to decide if this is someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. I’m not saying you need to get married within four years of dating, but at this point, you should know for sure if you don’t want to marry this person. Date talk will consist of future plans, how you want to raise your kids, what your financial goals are, where you’d like to settle down, and all other extremely important things you should have talked about in the first three months. A lot of your conversation will revolve around the future, both because you’re planning one together, and because you already know everything about each other’s past.
5 – 10 years.
If the first year is learning each other’s past, and the next three are about your future, this is the phase where you talk about the present. Y’all are either married, planning on it, or don’t believe in marriage but are planning on staying together for good. You know each other inside and out (pun intended), and now you mainly talk about what’s going on in your day-to-day lives. Dates will revolve around updates on your jobs, your coworkers, your families, and your friends. You’ll talk about how their they’re are doing, who has new news, and what drama is unfolding. Basically, you live vicariously through everyone else’s lives, because you already know everything about each other’s.
10 – 25 years
Your official dates are few and far between. Between kids, work, and home ownership, you’re lucky if you get one date night a month. And guess what you talk about on that date. That’s right, your kids, work, and home. Shit, that’s your whole life. What else would you have to talk about? Sure, you can sneak some gossip about which one of your friends are getting divorced in the mix, but then it’s right back to trying to figure out how to stop one of your kids from getting a girl pregnant and the other from getting bullied. (Solution: Force them to hang out together at school. You’re welcome).
25 – 40 years
Oh shit, you have to relearn who your significant other is. The kids are out of the house, you’re (hopefully) coming up on retirement, and your bank accounts are starting to recover from the damage your children did to it. You have the time and money to go on real dates again, but now you have to remember what to talk about. Time to go back to the basics. Your wants, desires, and fears have probably changed over the last several decades. Hopefully you still know what each other likes in bed, but for everything else, things might have changed. No matter how attentive and loving you’ve been over the course of your relationship, things have still slipped through the cracks as you both teamed up on taking care of your family. Get to talking. Find out who your partner is.
40+ years
Nothing. There’s nothing left to talk about. You’ve known each other for over four decades. Over 14,000 days of your lives spent together. What could there possibly still be to talk about? Now is the time to relax, enjoy retirement, and occasionally tell a long, rambling story that the other person has heard well over a thousand times. Maybe bring up the weather every few days. Talking is overrated anyway..
Respond
Nick Arcadia
The opposite of a life coach. Email or DM me if you want some bad advice: nickarcadiapgp@gmail.com
@noampao
noamio
Somewhere in this range there’s definitely a couple conversations where one party is appalled and another is disappointed in the each’s respective idea of what spicing it up in the bedroom is.
My husband’s grandparents were married 72 years. When I caught their side conversations, it was usually Grandpa telling his wife how pretty she was.
You forgot one major thing: pooping. There’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t describe the day’s pooping activity to my girlfriend of two years. Not quite sure why she’s still with me, but I must be doing other stuff right.
Plot twist: Your lady is secretly a proctologist.
40+ years: Talk about the past because dementia starts setting in and it’s like you’re dating a new person every day.
My parents are just two years away from their 40th anniversary. They still act like a couple of high schoolers in love. It’s adorable and gross at the same time.
Your parents still bang on the reg. Hot.
Interesting. For contrast, my mom drunkenly told me they haven’t had sex for 7 years
That’s why you have to marry someone who has shit to say about any and everything
This whole article just reemphasized the burden kids bring. Keep the dinner dates flowing and talk about what country you’re visiting next with this years bonus.
The “they are” saga in the 5-10 years paragraph gave me brain cancer
5 years in and we’re both still avoiding the M word. Why muck up a good thing right now? Talk to me in my 30s about it I say.
Sounds like it’s time to reassess