Are you excited about your upcoming first date? Got nerves, jitters, and emotions you've never even heard of? Of course, you'll need a wonderful, awe-inspiring, but completely different place to take them. Somewhere you can really break the ice without worrying about stop-and-go small talk. Try an escape room! Whether it's the local commercial escape room or an escape room home game, you'll ace the first date exam.

Face it, everyone tries to plan a first-rate first date. Most likely, you can't fly your date to Paris on your private jet. But you can probably do better than I did — a game of air hockey at the bowling alley. Although, 16 years later, we're still together, so I must have done something right! Despite my success, I recommend you try something a little more exciting and a venue that doesn't smell like day-old greasy popcorn.

You could go to a concert, but then you won't be able to talk at all. You could try finding an amusement park, but those grow more expensive by the day. You could even try the local roller skating rink, but something tells you that broken bones won't make for a top-notch first date. You're probably right. Instead, try an escape room!

Your date won't expect a first-date escape room. They'll be shocked by your sense of adventure and innovation. It'll break the monotony of restaurants, coffee shops, and strolls through the park. YAWNNNN! Your date will see you as someone fresh, exciting, and even a bit of a risk-taker.

Before you take a date somewhere, you might want to know something about how it works. After all, when they ask questions you'll want to stumble through the answers confidently, so you'll seem more like James Bond than Austin Powers. Here's a quick primer on escape rooms for those who have yet to experience one.

An escape room is a live-action whodunit. A kindly and benevolent (we hope) gamemaster will lock you into a room for one hour and will watch your every move. Your mission? To solve all the puzzles in this room, unlock the door, and escape! You can ask the gamemaster for hints to puzzles and even solutions when you become completely stuck. If you're playing an escape room at home, the game master will likely be virtual.

The escape room will probably pair you with other people, usually strangers, to help round out your team. Playing an escape room with just two people is as difficult as going on a date chaperoned by your potential future in-laws. We hope you have strangers with you instead of your date's parents.

Once the clock starts, you'll scour the room for clues. When you have enough clues, you'll start trying to solve a sequence of puzzles. You advance to the final puzzle — an escape room's version of Final Jeopardy! If you succeed, you escape! If not, they let you out anyway, but not until you take the picture of shame for their Facebook page.

Sound like the date-night WIN you're looking for? Your first step will be finding an escape room venue nearby. This article might help.

The standard questions — 'where are you from', 'what do you do for a living', and 'have you ever spent time in jail' — give way to 'did you find the clue to unlock this drawer', 'can you find the missing letter for the combo lock', and 'hurry up, we only have five minutes left!'

An escape room provides the conversation topics for you. Given the time pressure, you don't have room for wasted words or topics. You have a challenge in front of you. If you don't beat it, you'll spend eternity in an Egyptian Pyramid without access to Twitter or Netflix.

Escape rooms also build a foundation for later conversations. By the time you sit down for the post-victory dinner, you'll have established a bond by working with your date in close quarters. You'll be relaxed. You'll laugh. Conversation will flow. You'll have the escape room experience to lean on to keep the conversation moving. Asking your date, "how did you find the answer to the cipher" will effortlessly lead to another 15 minutes of conversation.

There are easy ways to test compatibility. Do they pull for your team's rival? Do they listen to elevator music? Have they ever played pickleball, and did they like it? The wrong answer to these questions dooms a relationship. After all, some defects can't be cured.

Escape rooms take these tests a step further. They require quick and precise communication. To win, each player must communicate clearly and must actively listen to the other players. A failure on either of these qualities dooms your team to failure.

An hour in an escape room hints at whether you and your date possess similar communication styles. You'll have insights into how well they listen and whether they can efficiently communicate their thoughts. Failing to escape does not mean you should abandon the relationship. However, it may highlight areas to keep an eye on and work on as the relationship progresses.

An escape room opens a window into your date's personality and lets you see it in action. Are they bossy? Do they have a quick temper? Do they turn into The Incredible Hulk at the first sign of stress? Or do they become as quiet as a mouse?

Escape rooms amp up the adrenaline and the pressure. There's time pressure to face. Your team has to search for hidden clues. Puzzles may require out-of-the-box thinking. It may take your team several attempts or a few minutes more than you would like to understand the riddled instructions to the first puzzle. These pressures remove the normal first date hesitancy, allowing a more revealing glimpse of your date's tendencies and personality.

Pay close attention. See how your date reacts. You can learn much more in an escape room than in a low-candlelight, high-dollar restaurant where everyone is on their best behavior. Your date may become a major control freak (minor league control freaks are acceptable and probably preferable), a rage monster, or a wallflower. Either way, you gain valuable insights into their personality right away.

Escape rooms transform you and your date into a team right away. Rather than dancing around conversation like a sixth-grader explaining a detention note to their parents, you and your date are sent on a mission. You'll have to work closely together, side by side, to beat the challenges and escape.

To escape, you need to rely on each other. You'll find out if your date is a math wiz or can't add 2+2 without a calculator. They'll find out that your most valuable possession is spell check. You'll both kick yourselves for allowing your vanity to talk you out of bringing your cheaters into the game. Escape rooms are so much easier when you can read the puzzles!

You walk out of the escape room with a shared experience, promoting a feeling of being a team. You've worked together. You beat the odds. 60 minutes into the date, you have accomplished something as a couple. You'll never have that feeling after 60 minutes of macchiatos at Starbucks. The rush won't be the adrenaline rush from a victorious campaign. It will be a combination of sugar and caffeine.

You've also made some great memories. The best part about escape rooms is talking about them afterward. Make sure you plan some time at a good restaurant after (NOT McDonald's) to have a bite and laugh about your successes and failures during the game. Reliving your experience and laughing about it with each other will make those memories even more special. If the relationship progresses, memories of the first date escape room will improve with time.

Forget everything we said above about discovering personalities and learning communication styles! Those are great reasons to play. But escape rooms are just wildly entertaining! That's the best reason to play one. Whether you go commercial or play an escape room home game, you'll have a blast! And if that doesn't produce a successful first date, nothing will!

Think about first date success stories you've heard about. Do they all involve white-napkin restaurants, tuxedoed waiters, and fine wine? Or do they involve unusual and exciting ways to spend time together, whether the date occurred at an amusement park, parasailing, or playing air hockey at the local bowling alley? Exactly. Take a chance. Make the first date count.

New and different experiences are fun. And even if your idea busts, your date will appreciate the risk you took to provide them with a different experience. Your escape room idea won't be a bust. It will produce a second date. That's the real goal of a first date, isn't it?

Commercial escape rooms cost approximately $30 a person. Given the cost of amusement parks, concerts, and other adventure events, that's a steal (printable escape room kits are even cheaper!). Moreover, escape rooms provide more interaction and shed more light on your date's personality than 90 minutes of listening to a cover band in a dark room. Of course, if your date starts singing along to Sweet Caroline, you know it's time to head back to Match.com.

Even better, escape rooms don't feel cheap. Even though they're inexpensive compared to other options, you and your date will have such a good time that you won't hear them complain about being taken on a "cheap" date. And if they complain, well, you've learned something valuable right away. And it's time for the next first date at another escape room.

Commercial escape rooms offer movie-set quality special effects and immerse you into the room's theme. They may be covered in trees and smoke to create a swampy experience or in sand to suggest a deserted island or Egyptian Pyramid. You know you've entered an alternate universe when you walk through the door.

If you and your date are more of a homebody, then you can transform your living room into an adventure that's just as thrilling! An escape room home game will naturally be a little more low-key (after all, you don't have the budget for fancy magnetic locks!), but don't worry, this intimate charm will work to your advantage. (Check out this article to see an at-home escape room date night in action)

You could design your own game from scratch, but that's a lot of work. So I'd recommend picking up a printable escape room kit. They're cheap, customizable, and can be set up in 30 minutes. Easy! While you won't have the same level of effects and decoration as a commercial escape room, you will have the time pressure, the puzzles, and the same adrenaline rush.

However, an escape room at home may be a little intimate for a first date. It might work if you have been friends with the person for quite some time and are only now asking them out on a date. They will at least be comfortable enough with you to agree to come to your house. If this is someone with whom you don't have a history, a commercial escape room is probably the better path.

Whichever you choose, you'll both fall in love with escape rooms the moment you play the first one. Escape rooms will become your "thing" because you played one on your first date. You can surprise them with an intimate at-home escape room adventure later, maybe for an anniversary weekend! They'll be thrilled.

By now, we hope you have an escape room planned for your first date. Now, all you need is to meet someone to ask on a date who is worthy of an escape room! Once you find them, you'll have a lifetime of happiness and bliss playing escape rooms. Good luck!