The Bookstore Date

Going Out · Low-key · Best on a weekend afternoon that becomes an evening

The bookstore date works because a bookstore is one of the few public spaces left where it is acceptable to be quiet together. You do not have to perform conversation. You can split up, wander, meet back at a shelf you thought the other person would like. This is what makes it a date and not just a chore: the attention you pay to what you bring back to each other.

The mechanics are simple. Go to a bookstore with some size to it — not a pop-up, not an airport kiosk, something with rooms you can get lost in. Give yourself an hour with no agenda. Wander separately, or together if you prefer, but do not rush. The goal is not to buy a lot of books. The goal is to notice what the other person picks up.

The Game

Find one book you think the other person would love — not something you would love, something they would. Bring it to them and explain why. This is harder than it sounds. It requires you to think about who they actually are rather than who you want them to be, which is, not coincidentally, also the work of a good relationship.

The other version: each person picks a book for themselves. Dinner afterward. You talk about what you picked and why. You learn something.

After the Bookstore

Do not go home immediately. The bookstore date extends naturally into coffee, or a walk, or a bar with good light and no televisions. You will have things to talk about. That is the whole point — it gives you material, and the material is the two of you.

If you want to make an evening of it: bookstore, then dinner somewhere unhurried, then home with whatever you bought. Read in the same room. This is an underrated form of intimacy.

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The review for this evening: The Worst Person in the World, in The Scene.