A few years back, a friend of mine came home after a long day of work to find that her husband had cleaned the entire apartment from top to bottom, had ordered her favorite takeout cuisine, and picked out a selection of different wines. It was a lovely thing to see and immediately made her feel better, she mentioned, after another crappy day at her crappy job. (She later left that job and trust me, she's doing so much better now.) Even better: That night brought them closer together. They'd been going through a bit of a rough patch and would later renew their vows.
After Redditor Solid_V asked the online community, "What was the best way you surprised your girlfriend?" people told us about the things they've done for their significant others that brightened up their respective days.
"When she was sad..."
When she was sad about having to get a new passport and lose all her stamps, I vectorized the stamps and had a couch pillow printed with all of them overlaid on an old vintage map. It turned out great and she cried when she saw it.
Fantastic!
A great gift for the passionate traveler.
"I didn't talk about it..."
Pretended I forgot about Valentine's Day. I didn't talk about it the previous few days, then the night before I snuck into her car and filled it with stuffed animals, flowers, a card, and chocolates. She had to work early in the morning and found everything when she got into her car before work. She came back into the house crying.
This is cute!
The kind of thing that can make the rest of your day. (Also: screw working early.)
"I drove six hours..."
I drove six hours to see her at college. We both moved away for school, I moved to Virginia and she moved to Tennessee. One night I decided I missed her way too much and drove from VA at 2am so I'd be there after she woke up.
She texted me about how much she wished she could see me and how much she hated being away from each other and I kinda just texted back "haha about that" lol ended up staying there for a week and going on dates every night.
"When we first met..."
When we first met I told her we were going camping for the weekend, about a 3 hour drive away.
On the way I said I needed to pee and pulled over in the middle of nowhere at a 5-star hotel. We walked in to reception and as she was about to ask where the bathroom was I pulled out my credit card and said "We'd like to check in please..."
She loved it! Which is good because it cost me my last cents. We're now married and usually go camping, not to swanky hotels.
"I got to her apartment..."
I was in the Army living in Hawaii while she was in the upper-Midwest for college. Decided I wanted to visit her and I colluded with her roommate to figure out the best week for that. I put in a leave request and told her I'd be out doing training (glorified camping) for a week so I wouldn't be able to text much.
I got to her apartment and her roommate let me in while she was out at class. When she got home, she just started ranting to her roommate for a good 15 seconds not really looking over. When she finally did look over she just stopped in her tracks and stared at me with my "dumb goofy smile." Took her a bit to realize I was real and quite a bit longer before she finally stopped squeezing me to death.
"I made a rap song..."
I made a rap song for our one year anniversary, and she listens to it everyday if she ever misses my voice! Definitely one of the most things I am proud of making for anyone.
This is personal and thoughtful.
Who wouldn't appreciate it?
"We don't live together..."
We don't live together, but she usually spends her weekends at my place.
That one time, I went to pick her up, but instead of going back to my place, I took her on a trip to my parents' vacation home.
Look at Mr. Moneybags over here...
...with a vacation home!
Just teasing––great for you both. Nothing like a nice getaway.
"She's sometimes very shy..."
By asking her out. She's sometimes very shy and had no idea I was interested in her because before now we were and still are best friends but yeah I was giving her hints and she wasn't picking up on them.
"We just pointed at stuff..."
Took her on a private plane ride for her birthday. We just pointed at stuff and the pilot would swoop over it.
"My birthday..."
My birthday was just a couple of weeks ago. I had been trying to make plans with my friends for a nice, very drunk night at my place, but everyone was busy that weekend. I had decided to maybe have a really lame birthday and celebrate the next week. My SO had me distracted for most of the afternoon, and when I came home everyone was there! I'm 23 and I had my first surprise party! And for reference, my SO is terrible at keeping secrets. She usually gives me Christmas/birthday presents as soon as she buys them because she can't wait to show me. It was wonderful. They had filled about 200 balloons in my tiny apartment, and we all got loud and drunk and filled the bathroom with balloons. I really loved it.
"He absolutely loved it."
My boyfriend's birthday was earlier this month, so I surprised him by making a video compilation of friends and family wishing him a happy birthday. He absolutely loved it!
"My wife was turning thirty..."
My wife was turning thirty and was feeling wistful about her twenties. In the four month leading up to her birthday I downloaded all of her old Livejournal entries (about a hundred and fifty printed pages, all told), formatted them and had them bound. She used to post mixtape tracklists back in college, and I found and burned each of those onto supplementary discs. The money and time investment was a lot, but it was a gift that both showed her how far she had come and how we were entering into a new decade of life as husband and wife.
Thoughtful!
Many happy returns to you both!
"He walked into his sister's house..."
My (then) husband and I got married and had our daughter in March of that year in AZ. He was then stationed to VA a month later. He was going on deployment soon after, so I stayed in AZ with my family. In June for Father's Day, I secretly flew to VA and met his sister, whose husband (also stationed in VA) had driven to the naval base to pick up my husband to visit for the weekend. He walked into his sister's house and saw me and our 3-month-old daughter sitting on the couch. He nearly tripped over the armchair to get to us.
That was a great surprise.
Spontaneity helps relationships a lot.
"Adding a healthy dose of spontaneity keeps the monotony at bay and can strengthen a relationship through good and bad times," Katherine Jane, relationship coach and founder of Never Too Late, told Huffington Post UK in 2015. "Couples and people are constantly changing, so keeping spontaneity alive in a relationship helps both people grow with each other through new-found interests and reduces the risk of growing apart."
Which is to say: Go for it! You'll thank yourself later.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
@haubenmeise/Reddit
@walrusbwalrus/Reddit
@LasagnaPhD/Reddit
@turdferusonRI/Reddit
@jeanie.online/Threads
Lev Parnas (@levparnas.bsky.social)
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social