Date Night Ideas: How Laughter Helps Brain Connectivity and Communication
Here are your last date night ideas for May! We've got another awesome round of content coming next Monday, but for now, let's end this month with some laughter!
Let's get to dating!
DATE NIGHT IN IDEA: GUMMY-MOTIONS BEARS
What to do: Before you begin, you'll need a bag of gummy bears, two sheets of paper, and two pens. Take your gummy bears and dump them into a bowl.
Have you each take a piece of paper and a pen and rip off 20 strips. On every strip, you each must write a different feeling (20 for each of you). You can write things like happy, sad, angry, confused, triumphant, ecstatic, bored, or any others that come to mind.
Take all your strips of paper, fold them up, and throw them into a bowl. Taking turns, have someone draw a strip and read the emotion without showing their partner. They must then pretend to laugh while showing that emotion. For example, if you draw "angry," you must do an angry laugh. If you draw "confused," you must laugh while looking confused. Your partner must then guess the emotion. They have three guesses to get it right. If they do guess it right (or are at least really close), they earn one gummy bear to put in their pile.
Play until all the strips are gone, or all the gummy bears are gone. The person with the most gummy bears earns a candy-themed date night planned by the other!
Why are we doing this? For this week's Monday Motivation, we challenged you to practice reading each other's facial expressions. For this activity, you are doing the same but adding the dimension of laughter. Increasing your emotional intelligence is important to growing and sustaining relationships, especially with your significant other. This activity allows you to practice this while understanding your partner's expressions more. Plus, you get to eat gummy bears!
DATE NIGHT OUT IDEA: ARE WE THERE YET?
What to do: Let's plan a date night out to a local restaurant! Of course, it won't be that easy. We've got a unique twist to planning your dinner.
First, decide who will be the driver and who will be the "decider." If you are the decider, think of a local restaurant you want to go to, but don't tell your partner your decision.
As the driver, your goal is to guess the restaurant and drive there without your partner talking to you. At every stoplight, the decider must "mime" one clue of the restaurant. For example, if it is a burger place, they would mime eating a burger. Or, if it across the street from a library, you might mime reading a book. You can choose anything you want as a clue as long as it gets the driver a little closer to the destination. We suggest first miming the location, that way, you aren't driving too out of the way, although that is part of the adventure!
The rules are simple: you cannot talk about the restaurant or the clues, and you cannot point, but the decider can nod to confirm that the driver correctly guessed the clue. The decider can only give one clue per stop light, and you cannot mime while you are driving, only while you are stopped (safety first).
The objective is to work together to reach the destination restaurant in as few clues as possible. You can also plan a night out in the future where you switch roles!
This activity also works with restaurants that offer take-out, in case you want to eat at home.
Why are we doing this? We have already discussed how laughter can help strengthen communication and emotional intelligence, and this activity can help that even more!
As you try and guess the clues, you are reading your partner's facial expressions and using your knowledge of them to guess actions and clues correctly.
$5 DATE NIGHT IDEA: DECADES OF LAUGHTER
What to do: On a piece of paper, list every decade starting with the 1950s (you can start with an earlier decade, but it might be a little more difficult). With your partner, research and find the "funniest movie" of that decade. The lists you find online might be subjective, so choose the funniest movie that sounds entertaining to both of you.
Once you have your complete list of funny movies, plan out a movie night together for the next week, watching one movie each night. Use your $5 to rent them if you cannot find them for free.
As you watch the movies, see if you can notice the differences in humor throughout the decades? What changes do you see? What was your favorite movie? What made it so funny?
Why are we doing this? Ending each night with a little bit of laughter is a great way to connect with your partner, and what better way than to travel through time watching funny movies!
This activity is also a great way to get to know your partner's sense of humor. Is it similar or different to yours? Did you like the same movies or different ones?