Date night?

S and I had a bit of a disagreement at the beginning of our official dating relationship (to distinguish it from our friend relationship wherein we went on "denial dates" for many months). He thought it would be nice if we had a specific date night each week, wherein we would take turns planning a date and then make each other the priority for that night.

I, however, thought this idea was lame.

I had a number of reasons at the time, but I can't seem to remember them now. I think it was the idea of being forced to plan something, even if we weren't getting along, or feeling obligated to hang out with each other instead of getting things done, or maybe it was just that we hung out all the time anyway, so why make a specific night the "date night," when practically every night we were on a date, if you define "date" as "hanging out with someone you are interested in getting to know better." Our whole time together was one big date.

S was disappointed. He has close friends who have date night, and liked the idea very much. So a few days later, I came around. S planned a date night.

And then, he changed plans last minute to spend time with some family. This was not good for my need for order, but I went along with it, because I was still getting to spend time with him. I did tell him, though, that I thought date night was supposed to be just us. Then he didn't like the idea of date night so much anymore, because he couldn't switch things around to include other people. We then dropped the idea altogether.

Later in our relationship, I complained that we didn't get to go out on dates very much, and S remedied that pretty well. Then it went to zero dates while he was gone, and then just a long of hanging out once he was back.

Last night, I was surprised when he called me in the late afternoon and said he was going to take off work and wanted to take me out on a date. He did just that and showed up at my house at 4:30, dressed nicely. We looked at movie times and decided on our showing, then waited to get hungry by watching a Japanese movie, "Densha Otoko, Train Man" which was fitting since we planned to get sushi.

One delicious sushi dinner later (awesome California roll tempura style and a couple of pieces of yellowtail), and we were at the theatre enjoying "Spiderman 3." While it seems unlike me, I think I enjoy the spontaneous date night more than the planned one. I certainly wasn't expecting to even see S yesterday since he works until 10pm and I had to be to bed early to work at 8am, so it was great to have an unexpected evening of good food and even better company.