The Five Love Languages
Well, it’s February, and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. This holiday (like many holidays) can be somewhat fraught, bringing about a variety of ambivalent feelings for many people. For example, some of us may feel an uncomfortable and heightened awareness of our relationship status; or, we may feel the pressure of social expectations to observe this holiday in certain performative ways. In “Valentine Dilemma,” the author of web-comic “xkcd” captures the latter sentiment quite well:
Whatever your feelings around this particular holiday and what it may or may not represent to you, the topic of giving and receiving expressions of love - whether with romantic partners, family members, or close friends - is relevant all year ‘round.
The wonderful thing about love is how many different ways there are to express it, and of course everyone is different in how we feel good giving and receiving love. Gary Chapman, author of the book “The 5 Love Languages,” suggests that there are at least five main modes or “languages” that people prefer to use in communicating love:
Words of Affirmation
Physical Touch
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Gift-Giving
Although this isn’t necessarily an exhaustive list, it does provide helpful categories for understanding some common expressions of love that people may gravitate toward. It could be that none of these particular ways resonate with you, or that some come more naturally than others, or that perhaps you like them all, depending on the context.
Whatever the case may be, it can be helpful to self-reflect and consider how we most enjoy giving and receiving expressions of love, so that we can better communicate our needs and preferences to others. By the same token, it can be worthwhile to ask certain people in our lives how they prefer to give and receive love, so that we can more deeply understand them and more intentionally love them.
If we find out that we naturally speak a different “love language” than those close to us, this may serve as a valuable clue in getting to the bottom of some common misunderstandings or conflicts we experience with them. And it might even open up possible avenues for preventing, and/or more mindfully resolving, such misunderstandings. Knowing how we prefer to “speak” our love, and sharing this understanding with one another, is one helpful way to grow closer and find that sense of fulfillment we are all looking for in close, trustful, caring relationships.