This Could be the Key to Bringing That New-Love Buzz Back to Your Relationship
Yes, please! (Photo: Shutterstock)
You know that moment when you learn something new about a guy you’re with and it’s so hot you want to drag him to the nearest bedroom ASAP?
I had that moment recently with my husband, Chris. And it was all because I discovered he’s an expert rock-skipper. Seriously.
Here’s what went down: We were hanging out at the beach when I tried (and failed) to skip rocks across the water. Chris stepped up and, without a word, skipped a rock six times across the water. He kept picking up rocks and effortlessly skipping them, while I stood there with my mouth hanging open.
He was good—like, really, really good. If there was a rock-skipping event in the Olympics, he’d take gold. It turns out, he learned how to skip rocks from his dad as a kid and has been honing his craft (apparently on the sly) ever since. I was floored.
Chris and I have been together for years, and we know pretty much everything about each other. I mean, I can recite by heart the story about how he’ll never play soccer again because he once accidentally scored a goal for the other team in his pee-wee league and was totally ostracized by his 5-year-old teammates (who sound like total a—holes). And he knows all about my brief yet tragically short attempt to be a guitarist in a band.
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So it blew my mind to learn that there was something I didn’t know about him—even though it was as silly as skipping rocks.
Now, every time we go to the beach, I ask him to “teach” me how to skip rocks like he does. In reality, I just want to watch and revel in his new talent that I discovered.
According to dating coach and licensed psychologist Jennifer Rhodes, Psy.D., it’s all because it was something new. “We love novelty,” she says. “Novelty is what keeps passion alive in relationships.” So whether I learned that Chris could skip rocks or wrestle crocodiles, I’d still be turned on.
Rhodes says my new discovery isn’t quite the same as the getting-to-know-you phase of a relationship because Chris and I already have a foundation of intimacy that wasn’t there when we first started dating. But it’s actually better: She says learning new things about each other when you’re already close can be even hotter.
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Of course, Rhodes points out that the sexiness of uncovering new things about your partner goes both ways. So Chris could be just as turned on by, say, discovering I do a mean karaoke version of the ‘80s song “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off” as I am by his ability to hurl stones across water.
I can rack my brain for factoids he doesn’t know about me and drop them into conversations with him, or I could keep them close to the vest for now and let him discover them naturally.
And while I could pepper Chris with questions to try to ferret out more info, I like knowing that I might discover something new about him down the road.
Maybe it’ll be next week, or five years from now. But whatever it is, it’ll be damn sexy.
By Korin Miller
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Korin Miller is a writer, SEO nerd, wife, and mom to a little 2-year-old dude named Miles. Korin has worked for The Washington Post, New York Daily News, and Cosmopolitan, where she learned more than anyone ever should about sex. She has an unhealthy addiction to gifs.
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