For all the questions I field about queer and LGBTQ+ dating — how to find a compatible partner, how to deal with homophobic family, how to meet other queer people — it’s surprisingly common for people to express concern about the mechanics of dating itself.
How do you ask someone out? How do you know if it’s a date or not? If it is a date, what do you do? For many people — especially if they’re sober — it’s tough to figure out what to do that isn’t grabbing a drink or coffee.
Planning your next queer date idea doesn’t have to be hard — here are some ideas to get you started.
1. Take a Ceramics Class
Handmade ceramics are incredibly trendy right now. You’ve likely been served Instagram reels of cool, queer-coded creators bent over a pottery wheel or shaping air-dry clay.
Ceramics and pottery are great hobbies to try out in that they’re satisfyingly challenging… but not so difficult that you can’t make something pretty in just one session.
Taking a pottery class with a date helps you bond over doing something new together — we know that social ties are formed stronger and faster by taking on shared activities and common goals. It sure beats spending unstructured time together.
It also helps you get to know your new date. What are they like when they’re uncertain or even frustrated? Do they support you in trying something new? Are they creative? They game for new things?
If the date goes well, you can send them home with the object you made as a gift and a reminder of you.
2. Go to a Bookstore
If you’re a bookworm at heart, there’s no better date than checking out a local bookstore.
Wandering around a charming space full of books is a low-key way to spend time together. It can be less intimidating than staring at each other across a table at a coffee shop or bar for three hours.
It’s a way to get to know someone more deeply and without forcing it.
Compare what you’re pulling from the shelves. What genres do they enjoy? What covers draw your attention? Show your date a passage you’ve found in one of the books and ask what they think.
You can learn a lot about someone from whether they pull out a stack of vintage cookbooks or a pile of pulp mystery novels — and even if the date is a dud, you can go home with a new read to enjoy.
3. Engage in a Little Friendly Competition
For some of us, nothing gets our blood pumping like a chance to score a victory of some kind.
If you and your date are the kind who like to race to the car, make a bet about who can finish their burrito first, or get very serious about pickup basketball games, it might be a good idea to lean into that energy and find out what it means for your burgeoning connection.
If you sense a charged, competitive back-and-forth energy with your date, it can be fun to build on it with an intentionally competitive date activity. This could be:
- Playing darts or pool at your local bar
- Heading out to play air hockey or foosball at a local recreational center
- Organize a scavenger hunt or geocaching day
- Plan a game night, either with friends or together
If you’re more into athletic competitions, a one-on-one game of basketball or competing to see who can get the better time on a weekend run can be a great way to get physical together and raise your heart rate in more ways than one.
4. Go Birding
Birding is having a moment right now, and for good reason — it’s free, connects you with nature, and becomes surprisingly addictive once you get into it. If you and your date enjoy spending time outside — or want to do more of it — choosing a local birding hotspot is a great way to connect.
There’s no struggle to make conversation or figure out what to talk about when you’re both locked in to trying to identify what’s singing in the next tree over, or conclusively ID the type of duck in the lake.
Birdwatching also allows for a degree of comfortable silence that can be difficult during drinks or coffee dates.
You can wander through a preserve quietly for as long as you like. It’s relaxed and peaceful, perfect for a lazy Sunday.
5. Take a Ghost Tour
If you’re not superstitious or even if you are, taking your date on a nighttime ghost tour can be a creative and thrilling way to spend an evening, especially in October (aka spooky season).
If you haven’t taken time to do some of the touristy activities available in your area, you might miss out on some genuinely fun opportunities.
Ghost tours can range from the historically researched and informative to the schlocky and downright cartoonish (which is fun in its own way!).
The former gives you the chance to talk about what you’ve learned, and the latter gives you the chance to clutch at each other during the scary parts and hold hands for comfort.
If you’re feeling like you don’t want the evening to end with the end of the tour, you can always head home to watch a scary movie.
6. Plan a PowerPoint Night
It can be difficult to bridge the in-between stage of dating — when you know you want to see this person more, but you aren’t yet in an exclusive relationship or committed to seeing each other regularly.
You may know what they do for work, who a few of their friends or coworkers are, but likely don’t yet have any in-depth familiarity on the deeper topics.
A PowerPoint night where you both prepare and present to each other mock-serious presentations on a topic of your choosing. Some suggestions:
- Why I Root For [insert sports team here]
- Reasons McDonald’s Is Better Than Burger King
- Crazy Things I’ve Witnessed During My Commute
- Photoshopping Myself in Places I Absolutely MUST See One Day
This activity can help you learn about your new date with a little more depth, at least on one topic. It’s introspective while also being pleasurable and tongue-in-cheek.
Whether it’s their interest in the local queer history or expert-level knowledge of F1 competitors, finding out what your date cares about is a great way to find out who they are as a person. You can come together to learn about them and share more about yourself, maybe over a bottle of wine.
7. Make Dinner Together
Going out for dinner is a time-honored classic date night. But if you want a change of pace, try making dinner plans in one of your homes instead. Feeling bold? Pitch making dinner together.
Preparing a meal together will help you get to know each other in a more intimate context.
Someone can portray themselves however they want in a restaurant, but seeing them at home is different. You get a better sense of how their life is organized, what their priorities are, and a more accurate dry run of what being in a relationship would be like.
Similarly, cooking dinner together as a pair is a great trial run for spending more time with this person or committing to them in any way.
Are they a patient and enthusiastic collaborator, or are they bossy? Does it feel natural to work with them to make decisions like who should mince the garlic and who should peel the potatoes? How do they react if you make a mistake, or if the water for pasta boils over?
Get Creative & Get Intimate
The point of early stage dating is to get to know someone, and these date activities can show you much more about someone you’re interested in than hours of small talk.
Also, sharing a unique date activity is so romantic and charming with the right person! If you’ve been wondering how to move things to a more intimate space, this is a great way to do it.
