How did Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice keep up his romance with Elizabeth in an era without FaceTime or Ryanair flights? It fascinates me how people in the 1800s had to maintain long-distance relationships and made them work. Today, as we travel across the world to study, work and explore, maintaining relationships no longer require penning longing love letters and waiting weeks or months for them to (possibly) get to your loved ones.
Yet we now face a different issue: boring video calls. With the inability to have dinner parties, grab a coffee or go on a walk, many suffer from the epidemic of mundane FaceTime calls. As harmless as these seem, the inability to keep things fresh in your relationships, and the lack of shared memories over time can lead to the deterioration of the health of your relationships. So instead of retelling the same ‘riveting’ stories for the 50th time, here are three ways to spice up the time you spend with loved ones online.
Starting off with the basics: have a movie or musical night! Watch movies or musicals together on Teleparty or Discord to recreate the shared audience experience. As with normal movie dates, online movie dates can get boring and at times too time consuming for your busy schedules. Throw in some fun by acting like the world’s harshest movie critics, watching some bad films, switching to a foreign language or crank it up to two-times speed just for some variation! You truly never know how much a good laugh can replenish your need for interaction and strengthen your relationships.
Ready to kick things up a notch? Why not be part of the thrill yourselves by participating in an online escape room together! Try sites like Deadlocked Online which offers simulated escape rooms that will test your puzzle solving and communication skills (as if long-distance is not already the greatest test). Not into escape rooms? Try Brawl Stars, Minecraft or The Sims 4 instead. The world of online multi-player games offers variety and allows you to pick whichever suits you and your partner.
My personal favourite, for its simplicity, is ordering each other surprise meals and having a virtual lunch/dinner date. A personal favourite of mine, these meal dates combine the thrilling surprise of thoughtful gift-giving with quality time. Simply order a surprise meal for your loved one (bonus points if it’s their favourite food!) and purposefully set aside time for each other. For me and a close friend who was all the way across the world in Australia, it was a super refreshing way for us to consciously carve out protected time to reconnect and simulate our usual dinner dates despite the 8-hour time difference.
So the next time you start missing a loved one or simply want to add some fun to your FaceTime, try out one of these online dates and perhaps you’ll feel like you are right by their side.
Illustration by Cherish Stotesbury (@cheri.creates).