If the upcoming Valentine's Day brings to mind a cozy twosome, you're clearly not a teen.

"For the majority of students, they just go out in groups," said Matt Bickel, director of youth ministries for Seattle's Bethany Community Church. "If they do date, it's a double date or they go get a whole bunch of people together."

Even longtime couples usually go out with a group of friends for at least part of a weekend night. "Maybe four of us will go to dinner and a movie, then meet up with the group," said Skyline High School senior Liz Morgan, who has dated her boyfriend for a year and a half. Or an evening might start with the group, then pairs break off. "You get the best of both worlds," she said.

Overall, though most of her friends have boyfriends "off and on," everyone does more group dating than one-on-one, Morgan said. "It's definitely better in a group if you're just getting to know a guy," she said. "It's more comfortable and you know what he's like around other people instead of just by himself."

Perennial favorites such as movies and bowling can get pricey, so some teens find creative outings that don't cost much. Morgan has gone "ice blocking" at Gas Works Park and in a friend's backyard. This involves buying blocks of ice from the grocery store, climbing a hill, covering the ice with a towel, sitting on it and sliding down. "You go pretty fast," she said. "It's more fun in the summer."

Other favorites: Broom ball (a version of ice hockey with shoes instead of skates and tennis balls instead of pucks); visiting Pike Place Market; hiking; bumper cars; laser shows; and tubing at Snoqualmie Pass.

"If you've got friends who are organized, a group date to an ice-skating rink is great," noted Jake Stillwell, a student at Sammamish's Skyline High School. "I just did that over our Christmas break with about 20 others and it was a blast. Group trips to the beach during the summer is always fun, and group trips skiing or snowboarding in the winter is even better, I think."

For many teens, youth groups provide easy organized activities. Bethany Community Church's high-school youth group organized a dodgeball game in an elementary-school cafeteria, followed by a viewing of the movie "Dodgeball." Other nights featured a progressive dinner ("We make the parents cook — everyone's much happier that way," says Bickel) or a "Saved by the Bell" '80s roller-skating night where teens were encouraged to "wear as much neon as possible."

"Anytime there's a big group, they're excited to go," he said. "Everyone wants to know how many kids are going."

Otherwise, "what we mainly do is sit around and hang out," Bickel said. Regardless of the location — Starbucks, Green Lake, the church's espresso machine — hanging out is the key activity.

Fun on a shoestring

The group dynamic often goes like this: "What do you want to do?" "I don't know. Whatta you wanna do?" "I don't know." "For hours," Bickel says, "until it's so late all they can do is go to Denny's for a late-night meal."

Like all teens before them, "it's about finding a balance when you don't have any money and you're trying to do fun stuff," he said.

Most weekends, Alanna Mednick, a senior at Mercer Island High School, ends up hanging out with friends from her BBYO (B'nai B'rith Youth Organization) chapter, even if there's no event planned. About half the time, they join the boys' chapter of the Jewish youth group.

They take dates to organized dances but mostly "it's just group fun," said Mednick, a prior chapter president who now serves on the BBYO regional board. The focus isn't romance but "a lot of people do end up dating because they hang out together so much," she said.

Even over such projects as sorting donated shoes, students "get to know each other pretty well," said Meta Anderson, an intern with The Edge, the high-school ministry at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. "They bond with each other over random things."

The church attracts about 100 students to its Sunday-night youth group meetings and organizes monthly activities, such as service projects and activities like ultimate Frisbee, water balloon fights and dodgeball.

"We just want to provide an opportunity for students to hang out in a safe environment that's fun," Anderson said. "We want them to feel accepted here, no matter what clique they're in at school."

A group setting lets teens spend time with someone they like without making it a big deal. A lot of them "constantly jump from crush to crush," Anderson said. "Flirting is what they really want to be doing, not being in a serious committed relationship."

Stephanie Dunnewind: sdunnewind@seattletimes.com.