Academy Awards 2010: Can a relationship survive without movie dates?

Nearly a year ago, my boyfriend and I welcomed an addition to our family.

It was a little unplanned, demanded late-night attention and often needed to be muted.

Cable TV.

We’d gone about two years without centering our dates on regularly scheduled programming. Neither of us had a fully functioning television when we met.

It was purely a coincidence — unless, of course, you count all the personal ads we submitted to “I Enjoy Being Cut Off From the Modern World” forums.

Naturally, there were some exceptions. We’d watch an occasional show via computer or DVD.

Given those limitations, you’d think we’d satiate our pop culture cravings with a movie obsession. Think again.

He was a full-fledged movie hater. I was a casual viewer with an affinity for giving too-long summaries of the films I saw.

My typical dinner conversation went like this: “So in the third dream sequence, the one with the bad guy who wasn’t really a bad guy, we met the girl who — wait, I forgot a part.”

Jealous?

Sunday’s Oscars will undoubtedly send many couples on a movie-going blitz this weekend.

We won’t be among the bunch. In fact, until recently, our dates were almost entirely devoid of pop culture influence.

I’d describe our cable-free dates to blank stares and questions: “What do you do for fun?”

Well, believe it or not, you can get a lot of satisfaction out of staring uncomfortably at blank walls. Or counting the tiles on the kitchen counter.

It was a unique setup. In previous relationships, I had the freedom to avoid a fight by turning on the Travel Channel, or relying on the movie theater as a Friday night staple.

This was different.

But somewhere in my efforts to find David Letterman’s silhouette on a screen of noisy static, I learned to kind of enjoy it.

Without the crutch of a working remote control, our sole entertainment was each other.

We filled uncomfortable silences not by relying on scripted programming, but rather by channeling our own conversation skills.

We also learned to appreciate the value of silence. We couldn’t rely on background noise because, well, there was none.

The tried-and-true movie date hasn’t yet found its way into our weekend regimen, but our most recent pop culture concession — cable TV — is a nice addition.

We now have the freedom to find love with Ray J, keep up with the Kardashians and root for Kevin Federline on “Celebrity Fit Club.”

In relationships, movies and TV can be more than mindless distractions. They sometimes ignite value discussions and fuel debate.

But I’ll often return to our days of a cable-less, DVD-free existence.

Because strangely, those moments — nights of TV static and blank walls — offered the best picture of our relationship.