3 Ways to Make Virtual First Dates Fun*

While the last year has been rough in so many ways, there have been a few good bits and pieces come out of it. A lot of people have reassessed what’s important to them.. so people took up hobbies or found skills that they can no go forward and make a living from.. some people have had precious time with younger children before they started school and some people have found flexibility in working from home. But one of my favourite things that has come out of things is normalising the video call.

For many years we’ve all made do with texting and it’s made us a little.. well disconnected? With the current situation shutting down the whole world and isolating many of us from our loved ones, video calling for work and socialising has become the norm and do you know what it’s really good for? Virtual first dates!

Whether you’re choosing to meet people using an app, or you’re using local dating websites such as an Edinburgh Dating Site, you’re technically not meeting out in the world, like say if you met someone at work or in a club so there is no reason your first date can’t be virtual too, using a video call. Here are some fun virtual date ideas;

Eat “at” a Favourite Restaurant

Another great perk about lockdown is the fact that a lot of restaurants have to be creative to survive. Some of them offer their full menus via delivery (i’ve had whole roast dinners and even steak delivered to my door over the last few months, insane!) and some even offer meal kits so you can make their dishes at home. Plateaway and Great Food 2 U are amazing websites that even lists meal kits from popular chain restaurants! Personally I prefer to support local, so if you’re Edinburgh Dating, look for somewhere that you would both ideally visit together. Then you can either have the meal delivered and create a first date scenario by getting dressed up and having across the table small talk, or cook together and see which meal turns out best.

Attend the Cinema

This is a little trickier as it can be all about timing but I can honestly say from experience, it’s a lot of fun. Create a virtual cinema date! A lot of streaming services are dropping new movies because if they keep pushing back cinema releases the schedule will end up saturated. This means you can watch someone as you would in the cinema from your own home. Agree a time, grab your favourite cinema snacks and set up to stream at the same time while video calling each other. Make sure you have all the lights out for authenticity!

Do a Virtual Tour

Let’s face it, we all miss travelling. For a lot of us it was the highlight of the year. The saving, the planning and the trip itself and it’s bound to be something that comes up in conversation with your date. So why not do a virtual tour together? You might be a long way off actually travelling together, and not just because of restrictions but because it takes a while to get to that point in a relationship! Lonely Planet has loads of tours you can pick from.