20 drinking games for couples

2. Would you rather: predict my answer

Read a choice. Before your partner answers, write down which option you think they'll pick. Get it wrong and you drink.

Would they rather receive a filthy text while buying groceries, or find a handwritten love letter in their coat? Have a hotel night in your own city, or four cheap dates spread across a month? Be surprised with a whole evening, or get two options and veto your worst idea?

Swap who predicts each time. Ask why when an answer surprises you. Finding out they hate surprises is useful before you've booked the non-refundable one.

3. Two truths and a lie

If you can finish all their stories for them, narrow the subject. Ask for three things about their first impression of you.

Give three statements, one invented. For example: "I looked you up before our date. I nearly cancelled because it was raining. I changed my outfit four times."

Your partner gets two questions before choosing the lie. A wrong accusation means they drink; getting caught means you do. Then swap.

Make the lie believable. And once it's uncovered, go back to the truths. "What exactly did you find when you looked me up?" deserves an answer of its own.

4. Was that you flirting?

Think of something you did early on: offering a lift, sending a song, suddenly becoming very interested in whatever they were interested in. Your partner has to decide: flirting or being friendly?

Reveal what you meant. If they misread the signal, they drink. Take turns bringing up moments until you've explained yourselves.

"I asked you to help choose a new mattress. What part of that sounded platonic?"

You need some shared history for this one. Newer couples can use moments from your current date, if you're willing to be that direct.

5. How well do you actually know me?

Each answer these privately, then give your partner the blank questions:

• What gives away that I want rescuing from a conversation?
• Which compliment from you has stuck with me?
• What would you order for me without needing to check?
• Which of our dates would I happily repeat tomorrow?
• What's my least subtle attempt to get your attention?

Compare their guesses with your answers. Most matches wins; the other person drinks once. If it's a draw, leave it there. This is also a perfectly good moment to explain your rescue signal before the next dinner party.

6. Who's most likely to?

Count down from three, then point simultaneously. Agree, and the nominated person drinks. Disagree, and each gets to make their case.

Who's most likely to miss a train because they wanted one more kiss? Book a "romantic" hotel without checking whether the bathroom has a door? Start flirting while the other one's trying to finish a work call?

Keep accusations affectionate. "You never listen" is an argument you've brought to a game wearing a fake moustache.

7. Higher or lower: bank it or risk it

You'll need cards, jokers removed. Aces are high; matching ranks are redrawn.

Turn up a starting card. Predict whether the next will be higher or lower. A correct guess earns one point. Now choose: bank your points and end your turn, or risk them on another card. A wrong guess wipes out that turn's points. Three correct guesses automatically bank three.

Give each person three turns, starting each with a fresh face-up card. Lower total drinks once; ties stand.

Two points banked would put you in the lead. Unfortunately, three would give you something to be insufferable about.

8. Sexy Jenga

Number a few blocks and match them to questions on paper. Leave the rest blank. Use the questions from game 5, or write your own. One for the list: "What do I do fully clothed that you find unfairly attractive?"

Work a block out using a single hand. It goes back on top of the tower. Under the Jenga rules, you must take your block from below the highest completed layer. If it's numbered, ask your partner its question after placing it. Anyone can skip a prompt.

The person who topples the tower drinks. Resist adding a penalty to every block; you're already trying to extract a piece of wood while they explain the thing about your forearms.

9. Kitchen-table pong

Set three cups containing a little water at each end of a clear table. Use a clean ping-pong ball and keep your actual drinks elsewhere. Take turns trying to land the ball in the other person's cups; a hit removes that cup.

First to clear the opposing end wins. If the starting player finishes first, the other gets a final throw so you've had equal turns. Both clear the cups on equal turns? That's a draw. Otherwise, loser drinks once.

10. Sexy UNO for two

Seven cards each. Leave the rest face down for drawing and turn one card over beside them. On your turn, put down a matching colour, number or symbol, or a legal wild card. Call "UNO" when you're down to one card. Can't play? Draw one card, playing it if you can; otherwise your turn ends. First out wins; loser drinks.

The useful two-player rule: Reverse works like Skip, so you play again. Agree on house rules before dealing. Especially stacking draw cards, the subject on which apparently reasonable adults become constitutional lawyers.

11. Truth or dare: choose the mood

Start by agreeing on tonight's level: silly, flirty, or personal. Take turns choosing truth or dare. A pair of completed turns earns a toast. Skipped turns carry no penalty.

A truth to start with: "What were you trying to impress me with when we met?" Or ask, "What would you like me to notice about you more often?"

A dare could be approaching you as a stranger in a bar. They need an opening line, and you get to decide how unimpressed to look. Or have them compliment your outfit, with "nice" and "hot" both banned.

If a question starts a good conversation, leave the next turn waiting.

12. Guess what turns me on

Write down four small things your partner does that you find attractive. Actual things: concentrating on cooking, giving directions in another language, the look they give you when you're both thinking the same rude thought.

Write your favourite on a separate folded scrap, then hand over the list. They get one guess at your favourite. A miss means they drink; if they find it, you drink and tell them the last time you noticed it. Swap lists.

13. Poker face

Sit facing each other. One person gets thirty seconds to make the other laugh without touching them. A laugh means the defender drinks; lasting the full thirty seconds means the performer does. Switch roles.

Use the voice you both know. Re-enact their face when a waiter says "small plates designed for sharing". Attempt your most serious seductive look.

14. Couples Taboo

Each make three cards naming a shared place or event, plus three words the speaker isn't allowed to use. Keep your cards hidden. Take turns describing one of your answers for your partner to guess in thirty seconds.

Example: the answer is "our camping trip"; forbidden words are "tent", "rain" and "mud". "The weekend you discovered your boots were decorative" is legal.

A forbidden word or an expired timer costs the speaker a sip. Correct guesses earn a point. Play all six cards, then compare scores. Pick events you both remember, even if your accounts differ considerably.

15. Who sent that text?

Open your shared chat separately and each choose four old messages. Read them aloud without names or dates. Your partner guesses who sent each one; a wrong guess means a sip. Then reveal what was happening.

Find something from early dating, something incomprehensible without context, and something one of you said with far too much confidence. "I'll just have one and be home by ten" has potential.

Choose the messages yourself; you don't need to swap phones.

16. The soundtrack of us

Choose four songs each. Play five seconds of a track and let your partner guess. Correct title: two points. Name the shared memory you picked it for: another point. After all eight tracks, the lower score drinks.

Your first slow dance is fair game. So is the song the hotel played every bloody morning until you both hated it.

Newer couples can pick songs from their teenage years instead, swapping the memory point for naming the artist. You'll learn something from the choices anyway.

17. Review our dates

Write two short reviews each of dates you've had, without naming the place. Your partner gets a guess after you read one aloud. Wrong answer means they drink.

"Excellent company. Chair apparently designed for someone without knees. Would return."

"Beautiful views. One guest spent the entire visit explaining that the walk was nearly over. It wasn't."

Choose disasters you can both laugh about now.

18. Back chat

Sit with your partner's back towards you and trace a short word with your fingertip, over their T-shirt. Use capital letters, one at a time in the same spot. They get one guess before you reveal it and swap places. Wrong guesses mean a sip.

Start with four letters: DATE, STAY, WINK. Move on to an inside joke if the easy words are working. If tickling makes it impossible, write on their palm instead.

You can be touching each other without anyone having to put on a performance.

19. Long-distance scavenger hunt

On a video call, alternate sending each other to find something. Give them a minute, with no running required.

Ask for an item they'd wear on your next date, their worst impulse purchase, something you've given them, or an object that needs an explanation. A found item earns a point; after three requests each, the lower score drinks.

The explanation is part of the turn. If you ask for something they'd wear for you, tell them what you like about their choice.

20. Bid for your next date

Write down four dates you'd both accept. A hotel night in your own city, dinner out, a board-game evening, breakfast followed by absolutely no errands.

Each secretly distribute ten imaginary coins across those options. Put everything on one if you like, or spread your bets. Reveal together, add your allocations, and choose the date with the highest combined total. If dates tie, draw one of the tied names from a bowl.

Whoever put fewer coins on the winning date drinks; equal bids get a shared toast. Then pick a day. Breakfast without errands won't happen if you keep calling it "sometime".