Something to Look Forward to as a Couple: Pick the Time First

It is Saturday, four in the afternoon. One of you says "should we do something tonight?". The other says "like what?". Twenty minutes later you are both on the sofa, and it is nobody's fault.

Now picture the same Saturday, decided on Monday. Nothing about the evening is different. But you had it in your head on Tuesday in a dull meeting, and on Thursday when the day went badly.

That second version is what people mean when they say they want something to look forward to as a couple. The research on anticipation says it is not a small extra. It is where most of the good feeling is.

Looking forward beats looking back

In one set of experiments, people rated how they felt about an event either before it happened or after it. The events were as different as a family holiday dinner, an imagined ski trip, and a few minutes of annoying noise.

The result was the same each time. People felt more when they looked forward to the event than when they looked back on it. The same evening is bigger in your head on the Wednesday before than on the Wednesday after.

Most of the lift comes before you go

A study of more than a thousand Dutch adults compared people who went on holiday with people who stayed home.

The people with a trip planned were happier than the others, and most of that difference showed up before they left. A few days after they got back, most of them were at the same level as the people who had gone nowhere.

Apply that to a normal week. The date itself is two or three hours. The looking forward can be five days, and it is free.

What this means for date night

If Saturday afternoon is decided on Monday, you get five days of looking forward to it. If it is decided on Saturday at four, you get none, and half the time it does not happen at all.

There is a second effect. A plan with a time on it survives the week. "We should do something" has no day attached, so it loses to the dentist, the overtime and a friend's birthday, all of which had a time and were never more important.

So the order matters. Time first, plan second.

Pick the time first, the plan later

Most couples try to decide both things at once: what to do and when. That is two decisions, on the day, when you are both tired, and usually it is the same one of you who has to come up with the idea.

Split them.

Early in the week, pick the time. One afternoon or evening. Put it in both calendars. Do not decide what yet.
A day or two before, pick the plan. By then you know the weather, how tired you both are, and what you have spent.
Keep it the right size. A place neither of you has been, a dinner at home with restaurant rules, a walk that ends somewhere new. New does more than expensive.

The gap between step one and step two is not dead time. That gap is the part the research is describing.

Why not knowing the plan yet helps

It sounds backwards, but leaving the plan open for a few days makes the waiting better, not worse.

When you already know the time and not the plan, you guess. You ask each other. One of you drops a hint and the other one gets it wrong. You are talking about Saturday on a Tuesday, and that is the looking forward.

A plan that is fully fixed five days ahead is an appointment. A time that is fixed, with the plan still to come, is something to look forward to.

When one of you always has to pick

If you have read this far and thought "fine, but I am always the one who picks the time and the plan", that is the real problem. The wanting does not run out. The planning does.

This is what Cuplido does. You tell it two things once: what you both want to do together, and when you are usually free. On Monday you already know Saturday afternoon is yours. A day or two before, you find out what you are doing. On your other free days there is something small to do together, and a question to answer every day. Neither of you has to come up with the idea, and neither of you has to chase the other one for a date.

Afterwards, you each write a line about how it went, and you only see theirs once you have written yours.

For the planning problem on its own, read date night planner app. If your weeks are full and the time together keeps disappearing, read quality time for couples.

Common questions

Why does having something to look forward to matter for a couple? Because most of the good feeling from a plan arrives before the plan does. People feel stronger emotions when they look forward to an event than when they look back on it. A couple with a date on Saturday gets several days of that feeling. A couple who decides on the day gets none of it.

How far ahead should you plan a date? Pick the time at the start of the week, even if the date is at the end of it. Five days is enough to look forward to it and short enough that your week has not changed. You do not need to choose what you are doing that early. A day or two before is enough for the plan itself.

What if we never know what to do? Separate the two decisions. Put an afternoon or evening in both calendars first and decide the plan later. Most couples get stuck because they try to choose the idea and the time together, on the day, when both of them are tired. The time is the part that makes it happen.

What are small things couples can look forward to in a normal week? A breakfast with both phones in another room, a walk after dinner, a place neither of you has been that is one stop past your usual one, a dinner at home with restaurant rules. Size matters less than knowing about it in advance. A small thing with a day on it beats a big thing with no date.

Before tonight is over, pick one afternoon or evening this week and put it in both calendars. Decide what later.

Sources

Van Boven & Ashworth (2007), Looking forward, looking back: Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ766344
Nawijn, Marchand, Veenhoven & Vingerhoets (2010), Vacationers happier, but most not happier after a holiday, Applied Research in Quality of Life. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-009-9091-9

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