125 Ways To Embrace the Love Language of Quality Time
Give and receive love in the form of sharing sweet experiences together.
We all experience loving and being loved in our own ways. Marriage counselor Gary Chapman, author of the bestseller The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts, suggests that there are five “love languages” that speak to how each of us receives love the best.
What Do the Five Love Languages Mean?
Chapman's love languages are simple to understand as they represent ways that we all demonstrate and receive love—just some of us "speak" one love language stronger than others. The five Chapman identified include words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. Someone who thrives on physical touch will feel the most loved by being kissed and cuddled, while someone whose love language is words of affirmation craves praise and sweet nothings that will remind them of how much you care.
How To Use These Quality Time Examples
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Quality time is the love language that can seem hardest to achieve in today’s hectic world. Time is one of the most precious commodities out there, and special time together can seem fleeting. With intent and a bit of effort, however, you can swoon your partner senseless with some simple quality time examples. These ideas need not cost a fortune (or anything at all, really), just the work to show that you want to spend your free time with them. With this list of exciting and unique ways to spend quality time, you’ll never run out of opportunities to shower your loved one with the gift of attention.
Related: How to Show Your Partner You're Grateful for Them, Using Their Preferred Love Language
125 Quality Time Ideas
Plan regular date nights.
Turn off your phones when you are out together.
Consider a “chore date:” Turn boring errands into together time.
If one of you is out of town, set time aside for Skype or Zoom dates.
Take a cooking class together—both in-person and online classes make offer quality time with your loved one.
Have a night weekly where you cook a decadent meal together.
Have a stay-at-home “happy hour” on the weekend.
Go to the beach and lie in the sun.
If you aren’t near the beach, spread a big blanket out in the backyard. Hold hands, and pretend you are on vacation!
Find a list of “one-tank trips” around where you live and become tourists in your own area.
Plan a picnic at the local park. Enjoy the sun and each other.
Take a nap together—other activities are optional. Cuddling is underrated!
Read the same book, and discuss it together.
Binge-watch something neither of you has seen before, then review each episode.
Undertake a DIY home renovation project together within your experience and budget.
Road trip to your nearest drive-in theater. Yes, they still exist!
Spend a rainy Saturday perusing a local museum.
Volunteer for a favorite cause together.
Spend time at your local animal shelter visiting all the cute animals.
Play the “question game.” Skip easy ones like “favorite color” and exchange thought-provoking queries like, “What is your favorite memory?” Or, “If you had to live at a different point in history, what would it be?”
Set up a private spa day and give each other massages and pedicures.
Download a fun and silly AR game like Pokemon Go and play together!
Go people-watching at your local outdoor mall.
Go get ice cream together.
Turn doing bills into quality time, as you decide together how you will spend your entertainment budget for the month.
Recreate your first date to the best of your ability.
Indulge your inner children and have a Nerf war!
Play laser tag at your local arena. The loser has to pay for dinner.
Make a list of restaurants you want to try in and around your city, and commit to visiting once a week (or month/season, depending on your budget).
Plan a vacation, well in the future (at least one year). Dedicate time to budgeting, planning and daydreaming about it together (and imagine all the quality time you'll have once there!).
Attend a concert of a band neither of you has ever heard of.
Go roller skating or bowling, and embrace the memory of those awkward teenage years!
Pull out the Switch or PS4 and have a gaming night in, complete with snacks.
Create a signature cocktail and spend time perfecting it.
Check out your local farmer’s market.
Get all dressed up in your fanciest clothes and accessories and then crash your local greasy-spoon diner like it’s prom night all over again.
Collaborate on a lengthy Spotify playlist and then take a long drive in the car, preferably at sunset, as you listen to it.
Build a pillow fort in the living room, and snuggle in it.
Go dancing. If you can’t dance, take some lessons together!
Gather all the gear together and then camp in your backyard overnight.
Take a walk around your local park late at night, especially if it is cold and you have to bundle up. Let the conversation flow naturally.
Instead of “Netflix and chill,” spend an evening watching goofy YouTube videos together.
Attend a trivia night at a local brewery or pub.
Go to IKEA and wander around every nook and cranny of the showroom.
On the weekend, browse the open house listings and pretend to be interested in finding your dream home! Make sure to discuss the pros and cons of every home you visit.
Go geocaching.
Find a local ghost tour or haunted house and feel the spooky vibes together!
Make date night more interesting as a “restaurant crawl.” Go to one place for appetizers, then pick another for your main course, a third for dessert and a fourth for after-dinner drinks. Start early!
Go boating together. It doesn’t matter if it’s as small as a kayak or as big as a sailboat!
Find out when the next meteor shower or lunar eclipse is, and stake out a great spot for stargazing.
Related: Pay It Forward! Here Are 97 Ways to Show Someone You Genuinely Appreciate Them
Take a dinner cruise. These are usually pretty old-school, and offer a quirky opportunity to dress up and do something fun!
Go see a show at your local community performing arts center.
Get tickets to watch your local sports team. Wear the brashest fan gear you can track down and root for the home team!
Learn something new together: Consider taking a class in photography, pottery or painting.
Get fit together by becoming gym buddies or taking a spin class together. Be each other’s cheerleaders!
Go to the thrift store together. Set a budget ($20 is good) and a timer and challenge one another to score the absolutely coolest find within the allowed parameters!
Have a movie marathon: all the Star Wars movies, all the Harry Potter movies, Twilight, Fifty Shades, Scary Movie… whatever floats your boat!
Keep dream journals, and spend time each week analyzing each other’s entries.
Test drive your dream car together.
Fly a kite together. It’s harder than it looks!
Play games meant for two, like gin rummy, chess or checkers.
Learn a new language together, and leave each other love notes. Perfect grammar is nice, but not required!
Take turns serving breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings, and chill together over some great food.
Work together to write out your goals for the next five years.
Park on the top deck of your local airport’s garage and watch the planes come and go.
Agree to meet separately at a bar and pretend like you’re strangers falling for each other.
Go horseback riding together.
Spend the day at a local amusement park together.
Check out the state or county fair! Try to win your partner a prize.
Play hide-and-seek.
Buy a tub of chalk on Amazon and decorate your driveway together… at least until it rains!
Dance in the rain together.
Recite your wedding vows to one another; pick somewhere private and quiet. No need to have a big party, just a special moment between you two.
Meet each other for lunch on your breaks at work.
Schedule regular coffee dates, where you both can catch up.
Write poetry to one another. Whether it makes your partner laugh or cry, you have fulfilled the task!
Go to the movies, but make it extra-romantic by pushing up the armrest between your chairs and cuddling through the whole show.
Create a photo album together of your favorite pictures of you two.
Work together to plan a fun, themed party for the most irrelevant holiday possible—think Arbor Day, Sweetest Day or Talk Like a Pirate Day. Collaborate on the food, the decorations, the music and the entertainment. Then invite all your friends!
Do yoga together.
If your bathroom has enough space, take baths or showers together. Wash each other’s hair.
Look up a discount airline, and find the drop-dead cheapest tickets you can for a last-minute getaway. Pack a bag apiece, and spend the weekend exploring a random destination.
Play “Would You Rather.”
Buy a guide on your local area’s birds, and go birdwatching.
Create a couple’s bucket list.
Play Truth or Dare!
Plan a road trip, but don’t tell your partner where you two are going! Take turns!
Go berry-picking, when seasonally appropriate.
Have a monthly Groupon night where you take turns finding eclectic new activities for discount prices!
Get physical at a trampoline park or rock-climbing wall.
Go to the library, and spend some time browsing the stacks until you’ve each found several books to read.
As long as it’s not too hot or cold outside, cut the power to the house (or pretend you have) and live lights out: light candles, put a fire in the fireplace, grab some blankets and play board games or talk deep into the night.
During the holiday season, put hot cocoa in two thermoses and drive around looking at Christmas lights while you listen to a festive playlist.
In the fall, carve pumpkins together and rate them on expression and spookiness.
Build a snowman together.
Plant a garden together, split up the maintenance, and then agree on recipes for your delicious bounty!
Make a time capsule of your life together and bury it in the backyard.
Join a fantasy sports team, and have a little friendly competition!
Deep-clean your bedroom together. Collapsing into bed together afterward will be dreamy!
Have ongoing discussions about your fantasies.
Related: 125 Cute Things to Say to Your Girlfriend That Will Make Her Fall for You All Over Again
Buy disposable cameras and take pictures of each other. Develop and share, then frame the ones you love most.
Go for a couple’s massage.
Starting January 1, write down every day something that makes you love your partner. On New Year’s Eve, empty the jars out and share them with each other.
Switch up going out to dinner by ordering for each other.
Spend the whole weekend in pajamas and commit to not leaving the house.
Book a hotel room together on a completely random evening, possibly even in the middle of the week. Pretend like it’s your anniversary and drink champagne. Call off work the next day (or make it a weekend).
Go out for coffee and “spy” on other patrons. Makeup stories about who they are, what they are talking about, and what circumstances led them to the coffee shop.
Create an Amazon wish list for items to beautify your home, and commit to plugging away at it when you can.
Go to the mall and pretend to be teens again: Buy an Orange Julius, go into stores you never visit and stop by the arcade.
Visit your local botanical garden and tiptoe through the tulips—or whatever else is blooming in your hemisphere!
Take a walk through your local cemetery. It sounds morbid, but can actually be fun and romantic. Try to find the couples who lived the longest, the headstones that are the oldest and the craziest names.
Dress up and stay in, watching a classic older movie like Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Casablanca.
Buy several brands of chocolate (or cookies, or any other favorite treat), blindfold one another and have a blind taste test. Compare your results!
Go parking. Find your local lover’s lane, climb in the back seat and smooch like it’s your second date. (Limit it to smooching, however—no breaking the law!)
If you are astrologically inclined, go visit a psychic together, and find out what your future holds!
Plan an outrageously over-the-top date, like a hot air balloon ride or a ride in a horse-drawn carriage.
Put on your most ridiculously retro outfits and go have your picture taken at a department store photography studio.
Go grocery shopping together when you have plenty of time, and take steps to enjoy the experience. Inhale the fresh food, touch the product and indulge in the sensual aspects of food-buying.
Research the history of your town. Then go sightseeing at local historic sites!
Go all Marie Kondo on your cabinets and closets, and donate things you no longer need to a homeless shelter or charity thrift store.
Shop for, plate and then enjoy a homemade charcuterie board together.
Visit a local art gallery.
Go swimming at nighttime: It’s super sexy and romantic.
Go watch each other’s favorite band or performer play.
Feed each other dinner. It’s sillier than sexy, but still a good time.
As you have seen here, speaking the love language of quality time can be spontaneous, exciting, and—most of all—incredibly romantic. You need not break the bank to shower your loved one with special time spent together. The most important thing is that you dedicate the precious commodity that is your time to being together, as a way of showing them that they are number one on your “to-do” list.
Next up, read 100 Love Poems that Will Make Your Lover Swoon!