Next time your significant other says they don't have any ideas for date night, send them this story.
New York City-based couple Dean and Jasmin Gaskin's relationship isn't just surviving, it's thriving. They looked quarantine square in the eye and said, "You will not ruin our fun!"
David Mack, a reporter at Buzzfeed, was sent a video by his brother who happened upon the couple dining on the pedestrian section of the Brooklyn Bridge. At sunset. Alone. White tablecloth and everything.
The set-up was more romantic than anything a restaurant could come up with.
In speaking with the couple, Mack found out that this wasn't a one time thing; the Gaskins had been roaming around the city, setting up their Home Depot table and chairs and Party City tablecloth around parts of New York they haven't yet experienced up close. In addition to the Brooklyn Bridge, they've dined under murals with their kids and at Coney Island as a kind of pseudo anniversary celebration when their trip to Mexico was canceled.
"We don't want to do the outdoor dining with other people around. We're not there yet. So we just do it among ourselves," Dean, a high school basketball coach, told BuzzFeed News. "We have a full range of locations we could travel to all over New York City and that can be our date night."
"At first, people were looking at us like we're crazy, and then we started getting an abundance of love from beachgoers, so we said, 'Why not just keep it going?'" Dean said.
The two even invited another couple and did a double date in Brooklyn Bridge Park overlooking the water, and it's obvious from the photos that they're not skimping on extravagance just because they're doing these date nights themselves.
The couple did point out that what they're doing wouldn't normally be possible due to crowds and tourists, but for a pandemic workaround, it's doing the job.