As time passes in a couple, you start to run out of ideas. Although in many occasions you would like to do something special for your half, you just give up as you have no clue on what surprise you could prepare. After a while, you just find yourself driven by this thought and you almost completely give up on this aspect, one that makes a relationship stand out and happier.
Now aren’t you bored of watching movies with your half? Aren’t you bored of the same pubs, walks, places and habits? I know you are! Today it’s time to make things differently!
Cheap is Not Bad
It’s easy to prepare a spontaneous weekend escape to Bahamas when you have a full bank account. But as not many of us do, you have to turn to creativity. People tend to over think things and add too many details when they’re trying to prepare a surprise for their special ones. With each detail added, the total amount of money involved also increases. If you have money to spend it’s not bad, but if you don’t, you may just give up on that wonderful idea of yours just because you’re thinking that you can’t afford putting things into action.
Sometimes you may not even get to the preparation phase that the thought of not having enough money will just block other ideas from flowing. In each case, you just give up he thought.
I’ll tell you a secret: you can do something special even with a low amount of money or no money at all!
Action One: take your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s phone when she’s not looking, record yourself saying some really nice words, and set that recorded message to his/her alarm. In the morning, when the alarm will ring, guess who’s voice will be waking up your half?
Action Two: for this to work better you should wake before your partner. Considering that you’re awake, you can also prepare some breakfast, can’t you? Imagine the look in his/her eyes when she’ll wake up with hearing some beautiful words from his/her love one plus the breakfast near the bead.
Tip: If your partner prefers some type of coffee or tea you don’t have in your home at that time, you could add this to the list and go buy it. If you don’t have the money, just use what you have home.
The day already starts looking better, doesn’t it?
Keep it Simple. It’s All in the Surprise
Don’t let yourself fooled by the thought that you have to prepare a trip to the moon, train two monkeys to sing something romantic and buy two exotic islands to make your partner happy. Well, I’m sure this would also be some wonderful surprises, but until you learn how to fly a spaceship, what do you say if we keep it simple? To tell you the truth, I firmly believe that it is all in the “road to the surprise” and the surprise itself counts less.
Action 3: Provide the unexpected
A real surprise happens when the person that experiences it doesn’t expect it to happen at all, right? So it’s an ordinary day, you and your partner are having your usual stroll which will “unwillingly” lead you near a restaurant you’ve both always wanted to go, but couldn’t. He/She won’t know but, instead of going forward, this time you will enter the place where the table you reserved is just waiting for you as you reserved it few day before.
If you don’t have the money for a restaurant, then you can just prepare for a picnic on the top of a roof, while the sun sets down on you. It’s not so hard to pack a bottle of wine, two glasses, some food and a blanket, is it? Let the sunset do the rest of the work for you.
Not too impressed? Me neither 🙂 . Here’s some better suggestions:
a) This will take a little bit of leg work, but it’s definitely worth it. If you know your half is in for games, then here’s one for him/her: go to your favorite spots and just hide different notes with clues on how to find you. Ask your partner to meet you at the spot where you left the first note. From there he/she should just be guided by the clues. Favorite spots are usually special for you two in some way, so to make this work better, as to guide your partner to the next spot, just write a memory you had with him/her in the spot he/she will have to go next. This generally makes your partner live part of the emotions he/she felt initially, emotions that made that place special. At the final spot you will be waiting for him/her with a present. You can always buy something cheap, but cute at a local shop or on Amazon
Tip: This generally works in smaller cities, so if you live in a bigger one and your special places are very far from each other I wouldn’t suggest that you attempt this. Also don’t include more than 3, at most 4 places and your partner will get bored of searching for you and you’ll ruin the surprise.
b) Much easier to accomplish is to prepare a surprise for your partner while he/she is away from home. Buy a present you know he/she desires. I usually tend to forget what Andreea wants so I got myself used to keeping a list of things she lusts for and, whenever I want to prepare something special, I just cut one down from the list. Hide the present somewhere in the house and prepare the notes with clues. Also include some “special words” on the notes so that you make things even more spicy. Stick the notes through different places in your home and enjoy the result.
You can also use the following trick to make things more interesting: purchase to gifts. One of smaller importance and the one that she desires. Half of the notes should lead your half to the first gift. Once your partner finds it he/she will think it’s over. But than comes the real surprise which will be a note on the back of the first gift: “The search isn’t over…” . 🙂
c) Take your half out for a walk or something. Leave the key to a friend of yours you trust and ask him/her to set-up your room: candles, romantic music, hot water in the tub. Ask your friend to text you when everything is almost done so that you can return home. If your house doesn’t go on fire until you return, then you’re in for a great night.
d) As I said, it’s all in the road to the surprise. Here what I did for Andreea at some point of our relationship:
– First I told her that we’re going out to a special place we’ve never been before. As you can imagine, she was really curious and excited, but after we walked a little bit and I’ve seen the impatience growing, I took her to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal (yes, we like Happy Meals because we’re also happy 🙂 ) and told her it was a joke. You should’ve seen the disappointment in her eyes.
– After that I was like: “no, really, we are going to a special place right after we leave here” and I took her again to another ordinary place we’ve been hundreds of times before. I’m sure that at that time she wanted to hit me with a baseball bat in the head, although she doesn’t admit it. At this point she lost all confidence that we’re really going to a special place that evening so it was time for the surprise to come.
– I’ve calculated things in such a way that if we were to take the bus from there home it will pass very close to the place I really wanted to take her. So when she thought we are going home, we were really heading for the surprise. When we arrived at the station close to the spot I was like “let’s get down, we’re going to the place I was telling you about” while she was like “oh no, not again”. But when we arrived there and she saw that this time it was for real, nothing could describe the emotions she was going through at that time.
So what I did do in fact is pass her through a number of different emotions. First, I lifted her emotions when passing her through the excitement of the surprise that was due to come. After this, I took her excitement down with the McDonald’s trick and even lower with the second place. When I was sure that she wasn’t expecting anything else to happen and she was disappointed enough, I unveiled the surprise.
The idea is that in this cases, when something you don’t expect to happen anymore does, it will offer the final result a much greater effect than if I was just to take Andreea to the special place from the start. On top of that, I have done something completely different which she will both hate me and love me for and also created a great memory for her.
Don’t be Lazy
It’s time to move that skinny or fat ass of yours and start doing something apart from reading blogs, if you really want to prepare something special for your partner. Thoughts without action are just thoughts. Your partner won’t remember that “you wanted to do something but didn’t”, he/she will remember reality – the moment. But if you like telling stories, go ahead.
I’m sure that “I don’t have enough time” is mostly an excuse for laziness. I’m also sure that you’re already feeling guilty when you’re reading this, while making up excuses again at the same time. It generally doesn’t take more than 2-3 hours to prepare something special (including the shopping part). Is that too much? You don’t have to prepare something special for your partner each day. Once in a few weeks is just fine. Can’t you do it alone?
Ok, let’s try this together – Action 4:
a) Decide on a day when you will do something special for your partner. Write it down!
b) Think on what you can prepare for your partner. Write it down!
c) Prepare, imagine each steps, go through them each time and think about what details you can add to make the special moment even better. I can tell you from my experience that details count a lot. Of course, write everything down!
d) Take action. Now that you have everything set-up you just have to turn an ordinary day into one of the best moments in your life 🙂
The thing about this process is that you become much more responsible about the fact that you’ll prepare a special moment for your half. Choosing a date means that you are already including this in your agenda while picking the what, where and the details will inspire your course of action through enthusiasm.
In the end of this article I’d just like to make you aware about something. It doesn’t mean that you are not a happy or special couple if you don’t surprise each other or don’t prepare special things for each other. Each relationship is special in its own way but I also believe that everyone likes to be surprised from time to time.