There is nothing wrong with meeting your partner for dinner. Bangalore certainly isn’t going to run out of restaurants anytime soon. But after enough weekends of choosing between Italian, Asian and “somewhere with good cocktails”, you may begin to wonder whether there are other ways for two people to spend time together.

There are. And some of the best dates are the ones where dinner isn’t actually the activity.

Bangalore is particularly good for this because the city has accumulated an odd mixture of workshops, green spaces, bookstores, performance venues, sports and experiences. So whether you’ve been dating for three months or married for fifteen years, here are 12 things you can actually do together.

1. Make something terrible at a pottery class

Few things improve a date quite like discovering that neither of you possesses the talent you imagined you had.

Book a beginner pottery session and try making something on the wheel. Don’t worry about producing matching artisanal coffee mugs. The wonky bowl that looks nothing like the object you intended to make will probably give you a better story anyway.

Mitti – The Pottery Studio in Tatanagar is one current option for pottery classes, while Mud with Love – Pottery Studio operates in JP Nagar. Check the studio’s current workshop schedule before heading over.

Make it a Spurkle date: Each of you makes something for the other person. You aren’t allowed to reveal what it’s supposed to be until you’re finished.

2. Have a bookshop date where you choose for each other

Instead of going to a bookstore together and immediately disappearing into different sections, give yourselves a challenge.

Each person has 20 or 30 minutes to choose a book for the other. It could be something you think they’ll love, something you’d like them to read, or something completely outside their usual tastes. Set a budget, exchange books and find somewhere nearby for coffee.

Champaca Bookstore in Vasanth Nagar works particularly well for this kind of slow date. There’s something surprisingly intimate about choosing what another person should read. You’re effectively saying: I know you well enough to think this belongs in your head.

3. Go climbing together

Dates don’t necessarily need mood lighting.

Try an indoor climbing session instead. One advantage of activity dates is that conversation doesn’t have to carry the entire experience. You’re doing something together, encouraging each other and, quite possibly, discovering that one of you is significantly more competitive than previously advertised.

Equilibrium Climbing Station in Indiranagar offers indoor climbing, while Climb Central Bengaluru is another option at VR Bengaluru. This is especially good for couples who have reached the stage where “Shall we get coffee?” no longer sounds like an actual plan.

4. Become tourists in Cubbon Park

Yes, you’ve been to Cubbon Park. That’s exactly why this works. 

Instead of treating it as somewhere to walk through, pretend you’re visiting Bangalore for the first time. Wander without a route. Take photographs of each other. Visit the library area. Sit somewhere you’ve never sat before. Buy coffee afterwards and judge your photographs.

Sri Chamarajendra Park covers roughly 300 acres in central Bangalore, and entry is free. Karnataka Tourism also points out that the park contains the State Central Library and is within easy reach of several other central-Bangalore landmarks. The point isn’t really Cubbon Park. It’s looking at somewhere familiar differently.

5. Race each other around a go-kart track

Some couples become closer through long conversations about their feelings. Others need helmets.

Go-karting is particularly entertaining if one of you is convinced they are an excellent driver. You will learn something about each other’s competitiveness very quickly.

Torq03 in Marathahalli is one of Bangalore’s established go-karting options. Decide on the stakes before you race: loser buys dessert, winner chooses the next date, or the loser has to accept the winner’s next Spurkle suggestion without complaining. Keep the competition on the track. Probably.

6. Try an art date where talent is actively discouraged

You don’t have to know how to paint to spend an afternoon painting together. In fact, it may be considerably more entertaining if you don’t.

Art Beat in HSR Layout runs art activities, while experiential art formats such as splatter painting and acrylic pours have also become available around Bangalore. One current Koramangala operator, for example, offers splatter, tufting and acrylic-pour experiences. Our preferred version is simpler: paint each other’s portraits. 

No corrections. No restarting. No getting offended. Then take both masterpieces home.

7. Attempt an escape room together

An escape room is essentially a relationship test disguised as entertainment.

Within the first fifteen minutes you may discover who notices details, who panics, who refuses to listen, who keeps trying the same incorrect solution and who becomes unreasonably pleased when they’re right.

ESCAPE ROOM Koramangala (Previously Mystery junkies) is one option in Koramangala. Go as a pair rather than assembling a giant group if the room permits it. It’s more interesting when the two of you actually have to solve the problem together.

And whatever happens inside the room, agree beforehand that it cannot be introduced as evidence during future arguments.

8. Do Lalbagh ridiculously early

A date doesn’t have to happen at night. Pick a weekend, wake up earlier than you normally would and go to Lalbagh Botanical Garden before the rest of your day begins. Walk without trying to achieve a fitness target, find the oldest or strangest-looking trees you can, take photographs and go for a proper Bangalore breakfast afterwards.

Lalbagh spreads across about 240 acres and dates back to Hyder Ali’s reign, with Tipu Sultan subsequently expanding it. Karnataka Tourism highlights its plant diversity, historic landmarks and central place in Bangalore’s garden heritage. 

If most of your dates happen after 7 PM, simply changing the time of day can make being together feel different.

9. Give yourselves ₹1,000 and go somewhere neither of you knows

This one doesn’t require a venue.

Choose a neighbourhood in Bangalore that neither of you spends much time in. Get there and give yourselves a combined budget—₹500, ₹1,000, whatever feels appropriate. Then explore.

You can spend it on food, strange things you find in shops, coffee, flowers, books or something completely useless. The only rule is that you can’t research the itinerary beforehand.

Bangalore rewards this kind of date because its neighbourhoods can feel remarkably different from one another. Basavanagudi doesn’t feel like Indiranagar. Shivajinagar doesn’t feel like Jayanagar. Malleshwaram doesn’t feel like Koramangala. Don’t optimise the afternoon. See what happens.

10. Spend an evening trying to escape from your usual entertainment

Here’s another inexpensive one.

Choose an area with things happening around you and make one rule: no cinema and no sitting in one restaurant for the entire evening. Look for live music. Find a comedy show. Walk somewhere. Have one course in one place and dessert somewhere else. Enter a shop you’ve passed a hundred times. Follow whichever of you spots something interesting.

Bangalore has enough events on most weekends that you don’t necessarily need the entire evening planned before leaving home. The date becomes the search itself.

11. Have a bookstore-café date with one rule: no phones

If activity dates sound exhausting, you don’t have to climb anything or throw paint at each other.

Take books somewhere and spend an hour reading side by side. Beku – Cafe Bakery Bookstore in JP Nagar combines books and a café setting, making it suitable for the kind of date where very little needs to happen.

The important part is the rule: phones stay away. Read. Order something. Occasionally interrupt each other with a passage you liked. Talk when you feel like talking. Doing something together doesn’t always require doing very much.

12. Let one person plan a mystery date

Finally, don’t tell your partner where you’re going.

One person plans the entire thing. Send only three pieces of information: what time to be ready, roughly what to wear and whether they need to eat beforehand.

Then take them somewhere. It could be pottery. Climbing. A park. A gig. A bookstore. An unfamiliar neighbourhood. It doesn’t need to be expensive or spectacular.

The attraction is anticipation. Next month, switch roles.

One of the easiest things to lose in a long relationship is the experience of not knowing what’s going to happen when you meet your partner. A mystery date gives a little of that back.

Bangalore has enough dinner dates 

You don’t have to stop going out for dinner. Some evenings, sitting across from the person you love with good food and a drink is exactly what you want. But dates become more interesting when occasionally something happens during them.

Make something awful. Race each other. Get lost. Solve something. Paint. Climb. Read. Explore somewhere unfamiliar. Surprise each other.

You don’t necessarily need a more romantic city. You may just need to use your city differently.

Spurkle helps couples find things to do together, from something you can do right now to experiences worth planning for later.