I think about connection the way I think about everything else in my life… holistically. Not just what we do together, but how it feels. What it awakens. Which parts of us walk away feeling a little more alive.
The 5 Senses
When I think about what makes a date memorable, it almost always comes back to the senses. The meal I still think about a week later. The song that came on at the right moment. The scent of fresh roses sitting somewhere in the room.
So I started thinking about how we spend out time together differently. Not just what we are doing, but also what we are feeling…
1. Taste
The most classic of all the senses, and the one most people default to, for very good reason.
There is something intimate about sharing a meal with someone. The act of choosing what to order, reaching across to serve the other person, lingering over a last glass of wine while sharing a secret that makes us both lean in a little closer.
Taste dates are for the ones who love introducing new flavors and textures to their palate, and who understand that the best part of dinner is rarely the food itself.
Taste will always leave us wanting more.
Date Ideas:
- Classes: cooking, baking
- Tastings: Cocktail Tasting, Wine Tasting, Japanese Tea Tasting
- Dining: Dining in the Dark
- Adventures: shopping at a boutique for flavored oils
2. Sight
There is a particular kind of attraction that happens when you watch someone encounter something beautiful.
The way a person looks standing in front of a painting they didn’t expect to love. The quiet that falls over someone in a room full of things worth looking at. The way eyes move when something genuinely captures them.
A gallery, a museum, an immersive installation, or two people slightly tipsy wandering through a museum debating which painting belongs in someone’s grandmother’s living room and which one is secretly a masterpiece.
Sight dates are for the curious ones – the ones who want to know how I see the world and aren’t afraid to show me how they see it too.
Sight is how we find each other.
Date Ideas:
- Museums: LACMA,The Getty
- Views: The Griffith Observatory
- Dining: Rooftop at The Edition Hotel
3. Hearing
Music does something to people that nothing else quite replicates. It bypasses the thinking brain entirely and goes somewhere deeper – somewhere more honest.
If you’ve heard of ‘frisson,’ you know it’s that rush you get when music really moves you. I experience this often, which is why these types of dates are some of my favorites.
Hearing dates are for the ones who feel things deeply – the ones who understand that silence between two people, both fully immersed in the same moment, says more than words ever could.
This is where we stop performing and just feel.
Date Ideas:
- Dining: Vibrato Grill Jazz
- Live Music: Candlelight Concerts, LA Philharmonic
- Other: read to me
- Classes: sound therapy with meditation
4. Touch
This one is about presence before intimacy. Not intimate just yet, just close. Close enough to notice the warmth of someone beside you.
A cooking class where our hands are busy and our shoulders keep finding each other.The warmth of two bodies moving together in a dance class, learning each other’s rhythm before we ever leave the room. You get the picture!
Touch dates are for the ones who understand that the best things are always worth building up to. The ones who know that anticipation is its own kind of pleasure – and that arriving somewhere slowly makes everything that follows feel completely earned.
Touch is the slow burn. And slow burns are always worth the wait.
Date Ideas:
- Classes: pottery, cooking, salsa dancing
- Other: a cozy afternoon with another companion (ask me for a list of my friends), teach me how to play your favorite sport, boutique lingerie shopping, cooking date
5. Smell
The most underrated of all the senses, and the one most deeply connected to memory.
In a very primal way, scent is what allows us to truly connect, and it lingers long after our evening ends. That is a quietly powerful thing, and I find it completely intoxicating.
Perhaps we take a perfume workshop where we each create something entirely our own and spend the rest of the evening wearing something nobody else in the world has. Or, a walk through a botanical garden when everything is in bloom and the air is doing all the work for us.
Fresh and light scents are my personal favorite – we want our senses alive and open, not overwhelmed. Olfactory fatigue is a real thing, and we have far too good an evening ahead of us to let that happen.
Smell dates are for the ones who want something a little more unexpected – the ones who understand that the most powerful experiences aren’t always the loudest ones.
Smell is how we ground ourselves in the moment and linger in each other’s memory long after.
Date Ideas:
- Classes: Scent Workshop
- Adventures: perfume & cologne shopping on Rodeo Dr, spice and herb boutique to find a favorite tea to each take home, The Huntington Gardens
- Other: baking brownies together
One More Thing
Have something else entirely in mind? I love that! Bring your ideas and let’s talk it through. The only thing I ask is no surprises on the day of – a little planning goes a long way toward making everything feel effortless.
Come find your favorite sense with me 😉
xoxo, Em
