Two years ago this summer, a guy wanted to take me on a date. I kindly explained how I don’t date or wish to, and how I just wanted/needed friends, and he seemed to have understood.

In a nutshell, he referred to going to the movies together as a date, then proceeded to ask me on more dates.

Dates.

Ugh.

The idea of dating irks me, mostly because I’m not at all interested in that whole boy-meets-girl and boy-and-girl-try-to-impress-each-other thing, and either break up or get married in the end for good. It’s repetitive. Another issue I have with dating is the social protocol—the expected way one acts, and God forbid if one of the peeps orders a salad—because, from my perspective, it’s all about impressing. I don’t want to impress someone.

I want to be friends first, but social protocol has screwed me over for that as well, making the friend zone out to be worse than when MTV’s “Scream” fans learned Audrey Jensen was in touch with the Lakewood Slasher. Honestly, how am I supposed to trust a guy will respect me if he can’t even respect the fact that I won’t be interested in someone I don’t know?

I tried explaining how his date suggestions wouldn’t work. They all had to do with food this, food that.

“What kind of dates don’t include food?” he asked.

I couldn’t think of anything.

I have Best Ideas Later Syndrome, wherein I have the best ideas later, when whatever situation calls for my ideas is long over.

In other words, I now have several ideas. Thus, if you’re looking for allergy-friendly, food-free date ideas, enjoy ’em below.

1. Bowl
   Create challenges—use both hands, face the opposite direction of the pins, close your eyes—to make it more difficult. Perhaps you two compete against one another with the aim to lose, but you have to try to win—i.e. no purpose rolling the ball into the gutter.
2. Pinterest crafting party
   Look up crafts to attempt on Pinterest, and see which you fail at and which you win at.
3. Play badminton
   Seriously—why aren’t more people into playing this?!
4. Attend a dance class
   Search for dance classes near your city. Many major cities may have free dance classes, but keep in mind several of these may be at a bar…so you’ll probably have to be 21—and run into nuts.
5. Play board games
   Just the two of you, or with friends.
6. Go to a museum
   Learning is always fun! Also, the exhibits may inspire intellectual conversation, which is a great way to gauge compatibility, interest and, well, intelligence. Museums are also my jam. #biased
7. Go to the zoo/an aquarium
   If you can tolerate animals at either of these places, of course.
8. Watch cute videos on YouTube
   Need I say more?
9. Indoor parachuting
   I think I need to personally try this to have something to say here. :p
10. Play at a playground
    What I miss most about my youth is having the ability to go next door to a friend’s house and ask their parent if so-and-so can play. Playgrounds are so much fun, and I feel like many have gotten a lot better and more interesting and I’ve gotten older. Sucks.
11. Scavenger hunt
    Make a list of random things and hit up a thrift shop or some other store to search for everything. See how many you can cross off in a limited amount of time!
12. Visit the library and select a book for the other to checkout
    You’ll both need library cards, but it could be a fun experiment.
13. Go rock climbing
    It’s hard at first, but it gets easier and slowly becomes really fun!
14. Go to a kitty cafe
    Cats are lovely (!) unless, well, you hate cats. Let’s be real: I don’t get along with cat haterz.
15. Go see a theatrical performance
    Ballet, musical, play, symphony—there are endless possibilities, and you might be able to find some local productions.

Do you have any ideas to add?

P.S. Many of these could also be done just for fun/with friends. Yay for options!