The 4th of the famous 36 questions for falling in love is: “What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?” On September 10th, 2023, I attempted to live out my answer.

Invitation

The message to friends read, with minor edits:

Please only attend the parts of the day that speak to you, and RSVP if you will join any part of the day! I am expecting some activities to be popular, some activities to involve only me, and for ~no-one to attend everything!

The schedule is:

• 8:30-9:15am, coffee and chocolate tasting wearing onesies, [home address], non-onesie pyjamas allowed, civilian clothes won’t be turned away but will be met with disappointed stares
• 10-11:30am, sauna + ice baths, Hackney Wick Sauna Baths, max capacity of 6 so please confirm with me
• 11:35am-12:50pm, lunch, Gotto Trattoria (Hackney Wick)
• 1-2pm, beautiful walk, Wick Woodland
• 2:15-3pm, piano hopping, the public piano at stratford international train station, involves public singing
• 3:10-4pm, weightlifting, gymbox westfield stratford, i’ll pay for my own + others day passes
• 4:10-4:30pm, smoothies, boost juice bars westfield stratford
• 5-6pm, trampolining, oxygen O2 arena
• 7-9pm, dinner party, [home address], max capacity ~20 so check with me
• 9-10pm, wine and reading, [home address], reading on laptop allowed, conversations about reading allowed, but absolutely no work allowed
• 10-11pm, walk in circles around the block calling friends in convenient time zones, area surrounding [home address]

Activities

Constraints prevented me from including a bunch of activities in the day. These include:

1. Music jam.
2. Karaoke.
3. Jacuzzi ‘hot-seat’ (although we did play non-jacuzzi hot-seat during the dinner party).
4. Dog cafe with Mushu.
5. Smores.
6. Great falafel.
7. Thinking in a beautiful location with comfortable seating.
8. Amusement park.
9. Abba/musical/00’s-themed club night.
10. Themed house party.
11. Listening to friends share their interests with me (or, more formally, ’lightening talks’).

I thought it would be interesting to track my affect during the activities I did do, comparing it with my prior expectations.

I’ve booked the private sauna and ice baths a couple of times since the event. £100 for 6 people for 90 minutes is pretty good!

Trampolining, alas, is too far away to regularly bother with.

Piano hopping was much more lame than I expected. (And I love playing and singing for crowds.) I think the missing piece was the crowd having shared context.

Planning challenges

The hardest aspect of planning the day was getting the geography right. Ignoring this (arranging ideal activities in preferred order regardless of geography) would have led to costly travel and a much more empty schedule.

This event might have been significantly harder to pull off if I had not been prepared to pay for the entire thing myself. In the end, I more or less did pay for everything, but note that what matters is only the worst-case commitment to paying. Money makes coordinating people to be in the same place at the same time much easier – once coordinated, people are happier to pay! I could have been firmer about tracking expense shares and following up on this, without making the event noticeably worse.