Can LEGO make first dates less stressful?

Can LEGO sets make first dates less stressful? The LEGO Group reckons so, but we suspect it’s only true if you’re already building on the same wavelength.

The company’s latest ‘adults welcome’ ad sees a handful of hopeful daters bonding over 10280 Flower Bouquet and 10281 Bonsai Tree. (They’ve clearly abandoned the idea of building while listening to the ‘soothing’ sound of LEGO bricks.) And while it’s obviously all very stage-managed, we can’t help but wonder whether LEGO sets would genuinely help out on first dates.

To its credit, the video makes some good points: those awkward lulls in conversation, fretting over too much or too little eye contact, and worrying about where to place your hands (we guess?) can all be sidestepped by the mutual activity of assembling a LEGO set, be it a Botanical Collection build or anything else. (Okay, maybe 75192 Millennium Falcon is a bit much for a first date.)

But to really make it work, you’ll both need to be on board with building LEGO in the first place. And for as much as the LEGO Group’s adult audience is rapidly expanding, breaking out a box of bricks still feels like a relatively unorthodox first date activity.

Ed Sheeran’s memorable account of giving it a go still lives long in our minds, too, which really doesn’t help the LEGO Group’s cause. If you’re unfamiliar with the story – as recounted on The Graham Norton Show – the singer claims he once took a LEGO set on a date (a Pirates of the Caribbean ship, if you’re curious), built it, then… left. That’s probably not quite the experience the LEGO Group had in mind when putting together its latest ad.

Then again, turning up with 10280 Flower Bouquet in tow is probably a good litmus test for figuring out if your date really is the one. If their eyes light up and they start tearing open the bags (not all of them at once, of course, that would be insane), then you know you’ve found a keeper.

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