<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Too often, when people think &amp;amp;#8220;romance,&amp;amp;#8221; they immediately default to over-the-top cliches: the room filled with rose petals, the marriage proposal on the ball park screen, a kiss at the top of the Eiffel Tower. And sure, maybe once or twice in a lifetime those things are both warranted and doable. But it&amp;amp;#8217;s not always necessary to go all out to achieve a romantic setting &amp;amp;#8212; there are plenty of little things you can do. Here are five simple ideas to make your dates more romantic. 1. Lose The Cell Phones No date, especially when you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been together for a while, occurs without at least one partner checking their phone. At dinner, one or both of you may put it on the table as if it&amp;amp;#8217;s a pet that could nibble from one of your plates. Try eliminating cell phones from a date, or for a weekend. It will help you direct your attention toward (surprise) each other. But be sure to account for the fact that you won&amp;amp;#8217;t have cell phones. Wear a watch, set up times and places to meet, and be precise. Along with making it much tougher for horror movie villains to catch and kill their victims, cell phones have made it easier to find each other. You could use phones until you find each other, and then shut them off. But stick to the rules. 2. Put Price Limits On Gifts and/or Dates Many fairy tales, cheesy sitcoms and romantic comedies preach that you don&amp;amp;#8217;t need money to be happy together. All you need is each other &amp;amp;#133; and Christian Louboutins and a huge HD TV, right? Seriously, though- when you have a lot of money, or spend a lot of money (even though you don&amp;amp;#8217;t have a lot of money), it&amp;amp;#8217;s easy to make someone happy. It doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t require as much creative thinking, either. Setting a budget for gifts and dates means you&amp;amp;#8217;ll have to come up with something fun but simple. You could even create a rule where you&amp;amp;#8217;re not allowed to spend any money on the date at all (I would love that rule!). 3. Write A Letter When I was cleaning out my closet a few weeks back, I found a seven-year-old letter from an ex-girlfriend. I read it, and it was touching. It didn&amp;amp;#8217;t bring back feelings for her, but it did remind me that, despite a pretty bad breakup, that was a fun time in my life and she was part of it. With the rise of email, instant messenger, and social media, we&amp;amp;#8217;ve forgotten about letters. It&amp;amp;#8217;s so easy to type out an email, even if it&amp;amp;#8217;s rife with emotional thoughts. If an email is a mechanical version of our thoughts, a letter is a hand crafted version. It won&amp;amp;#8217;t fall into the archives or be &amp;amp;#8220;deleted.&amp;amp;#8221; It will be placed somewhere for safe keeping, and it can be revisited or, better yet &amp;amp;#8212; forgotten and found later. 4. Stay In The Whole Weekend On special occasions, we tend to gravitate towards the Nice Dinner in a Fancy Restaurant date &amp;amp;#8212; but the presence of everyone else there can drain the intimacy. Staying in for the weekend ensures one-on-one interaction, privacy, and creativity: picking out movies together, making meals together, and even&amp;amp;#133; lots of cuddling (guys like that sometimes). 5. Get Back To Nature If you hit the hiking trail or set up camp outdoors, you&amp;amp;#8217;re pitted (to an extent) against nature together. Can you both live off the land (AKA operate a can opener), fight off wildlife (AKA wear lots of bug spray)? Sometimes we forget that being alone, outside, is so intimate. Even if you&amp;amp;#8217;re not the &amp;amp;#8220;outdoors type,&amp;amp;#8221; you might want to give it a shot because leaving your comfort zone with the one you love often leads to a romantic experience. --Written by Rich Santos for HowAboutWe.com Could your relationship stand a bit more romance? What other easy romance ideas do you have to add to the list? More from HowAboutWe: *5 Ways to Fix a First Date Gaffe *5 Ways to Screw Up the First Date Before It Happens *5 Tips For Meeting The Family Photo: Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2012/03/5-stupidly-simple-things-you-c>