Submitted by Ashlee Zimmerman, University of Akron I used these slides and cut out hearts to put them on and made a big Center heart for the title. Residents loved the kooky and serious ideas that they actually used. Ashlee

Need to add some spice back into your dating life? Or just get one started on the right foot? Heres a couple quick, fun, inexpensive ideas!

FREE Date Ideas!

Go window shopping. Discuss what you would buy if you had lots of money. Go to the children's section of a library or bookstore and read children's books to each other. Find a muddy area, dress in your grubbies and have a mud fight. For groups, take along a rope for a tug-of- war.

Locate a large piece of cardboard. This can be found at a nearby furniture or appliance store. Curve the end up like a toboggan. Find a sloping hill of dry grass and slide down. Wear older clothes (grass stains). On a sunny Saturday morning, travel around the countryside and photograph special sites and serene scenery. Go for a walk together either in a crowded city or alone in the country.

Inexpensive Dates

Build stilts and go for a walk in the neighborhood. Design and construct an outfit from newspaper, construction paper, crepe paper, and string. Then have a runway show to model outfits. Have an ice cream sculpting contest. Each couple gets a block of ice cream, spoons, knives, and toppings. This is a messy activity, but lots of fun.

Pick up your date and a chaperone and go on a canoe ride on a lazy river or canal. The chaperone's job is to row while you entertain your date and/or eat. Spend less than one dollar for dinner and movies. Go to the grocery store to sample free food items. Then go back to your house to watch a video. Snacks that you can scrounge from around the house don't count against the dollar.

Unusual Dates

Take a tablecloth, silverware and candlestick and eat at MacDonald's. Start at your date's house. Before you get to an intersection, flip the coin. Heads you turn right; tails you turn left. Use this technique to decide where to go to dinner (you stop at the first restaurant as determined by the flip of a coin).

Go to the mall with your date and two easels and painting supplies. Put up a sign offering free portraits by budding artists, then one of the couple does their best portrait while the other spends five minutes drawing stick figures. Show them both to the person, ask which is better and give him/her the opposite (or give away both portraits). Conduct an impromptu concert in the third level of a parking garage at a famous hotel.

Romantic Dates

Show up with 2 letters (one for each of you) and some paper and pens. Write each other a letter saying how you feel about the other or anything special about the relationship and where you think you'll be or what you think you'll be doing in a certain amount of time. Then, agree to open them in a week, month, year, etc. When your date is far away or busy, do this: Before you hang up ask him/her to meet you in your dreams (in an open baseball stadium on the pitchers mound, in a canoe in the middle of the lake at sunset, etc.). Be specific.

Watch the sunset together (best at the lake, ocean, or mountains). Take a horse-drawn carriage ride. Take a ride to see the trees in spring blossom. Rent a classic love story video and watch it while cuddling. Plan a study date. Be sure you have a well-lit spot with no interruptions from the outside. While you're working, take refreshment or exercise breaks about every hour.