Creative Couples

Can sweethearts do anything together apart from kissing and cuddling? Hilde and Vegard have some good suggestions for leisure activities.

‘We are pretty creative in what we find to do together.’ Hilde Torland and Vegard Ask (both eighteen) from Nærbø in Norway have dated twice, for a total of two years, and say that they get on well.

‘At least it’s not boring. We try to vary our activities, but if we don’t give much thought to it we end up watching films or something else on TV. Sometimes we go to the cinema, other times we eat out. Monopoly’s a real winner, so we’ve played that a lot. It lasts a long time and fills up our spare time. At other times we make dinner together or go for a walk. We’ve been on a salsa course the last few months.’

It’s important to have common interests.

‘Is all this typical for couples who are dating?’

‘Well, we’re not totally unlike every other couple. Perhaps the salsa course was a bit unusual,’ says Vegard. They say that they’ve both become pretty good at it in the past six months.

‘Would you have done the same things you’re doing now if you were single?’

‘I wouldn’t have gone on a salsa course. And I would have spent more time with my friends in the evenings,’ says Vegard.

‘It’s important to have common interests, things we are both enthusiastic about. We were good friends before we got together, so there haven’t been so many surprises afterwards,’ says Hilde.

‘I like films more than Hilde, and she likes salsa more than I do. Come to think of it, I like salsa quite a lot too, even though I was a bit sceptical at the start,’ says Vegard.

‘You were pretty sporty to try it anyway then?’

‘Either that, or I’m a fool,’ he laughs.

We get to know each other better when we do things together.

Vegard and Hilde think it’s important to spend a lot of time together, both alone and with others. They have lots of common friends, and have always been in the same group of friends.

‘We get to know each other better when we do things together, and talk about them. We also talk when we do other things,’ says Hilde.

‘We actually talk about what we’ll do when we are together. When we were dating for the first time, we watched a lot of TV. One of us would visit the other, and then we just sat watching TV the whole evening. It was pretty boring. This time we’re dating we’re also together during the day, and do different things.’

It shouldn’t just be about cuddling.

‘Most romantic partners kiss and cuddle a bit too. What’s best, kissing and cuddling or other things?’

‘Both are equally good. We need a bit of everything. If there hadn’t been any kissing and cuddling we would just have been best friends and not sweethearts. But at the same time you also need the best friend part, it shouldn’t only be cuddling,’ says Vegard.

From the book Verdt å vente på (Worth Waiting For) by Øivind Benestad.