A date night is a prearranged occasion where people go out together in order to bridge communication gaps, discover new and interesting things about one-another, de-stress, light a spark and keep it alive. The RLabs women accomplished this and more on the evening of the 20 November 2018.

In true RLabs fashion we started out the evening with a check-in but for the purpose of it being a date night, we shall refer to it as a “hook-up”. During a hook-up, you discover new intimate details about the next person, like how they would react and their feelings on certain situations. That is exactly what we did, we were asked a series of “would you rather” questions and even though there were only two possible answers, it sparked so many different conversations and we received a chance to celebrate our similarities, learn so much more about the next person and see sides to them that you do not generally see in a working environment.

As we all know date nights are all about relationships so once we were all settled in and our serotonin levels were skyrocketing, we had to select three relationship experts in the room – these experts had to answer some questions on issues that people generally face with regards to their day to day relationships. This is where we got insight as to who we should let into our lives and who are just energy vampires, there to suck and feed off our last little bit of energy we have and leave us feeling drained and tired and not giving that energy to those in our lives that deserve it – like those that refresh us, that help us grow, feel lighter and happier. This gave us a chance to reflect on the type of people we keep in our lives and called us out on sometimes being those toxic people that let us into their lives.

Now that we were “woke” about life around us, we were challenged once more. At the beginning of the evening, we all randomly drew a word from a jar and were told to think about the word on the piece of paper – like what our definition for the word was, how it related to our lives in particular, etc. We made a circle in a peaceful, safe space because this is where we had to share our thoughts on the word we received. This was the part of the evening where we saw the deep, raw, vulnerable parts of all the women, they showed true courage by willingly sharing their scars. It was a beautiful experience because personally as women, we are seen as the more emotional sex and in order to be taken seriously – we need to be stern, firm and put up a front so it was amazing to see them unleash their true selves not only to the ones around them but to themselves also.

It was something very new to me, being the youngest and most unfamiliar in the room, it was a lot to adjust to in the start but as the night went on it only got increasingly more comfortable. The hook up brought me a sense of belonging because I got to see how similar I was to those around me. The relationship experts really taught me a few things and made me realise just how much I give my time to the wrong people. The safe space helped me express myself and see why I am the way I am. It was truly an unwinding experience for the books.

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