Love Languages
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I was social distancing before it was a thing!
Recently I awoke to find a text from my daughter, Hayley, who is away at college. She sent it to our family group chat, which incidentally is called Grosh #savetheturtles #noplastic. I have no idea why that’s the name of our family group chat. But I digress. Hayley sent a link for a quiz to determine one’s Love Languages, along with the request that we all take the quiz and share the results.
Quick Primer: There are 5 Love Languages, as described by author Gary Chapman. These are: Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, Words of Affirmation, and Quality Time. The premise is that each person has a primary language by which they receive love. It’s the avenue that speaks love the loudest to them.
I’ve taken the test many times so it was no surprise to me that my primary love language is Acts of Service. If you want to show love to me, clean up after yourself! Or help me do a task that I don’t enjoy doing. My 2 lowest categories are Receiving Gifts and Physical Touch. I’m well-paired with Thomas in the Gift category because he scored a big fat Zero there! Ha! It means that neither of us gets bent out of shape come holiday time. We’re both happy with a chocolate bar or equivalent value. I do recall one gift he gave to me that was out of the blue and turned out to be one of the most useful things I own—a postal scale! Thomas scored highest in Words of Affirmation which I also knew already. And hopefully this serves as a reminder to me to be more intentional of showing love to him by affirming his gifts (not presents).
Here’s where things get dicey—Lily’s and Hayley’s scores were pretty even across the board! So I guess we could call them High Maintenance! We need to love them ALL the ways. That fits pretty well with their enneagrams too. Ellen and I both scored a measly 3% in Physical Touch. Guess what Eden’s highest category was?? Physical Touch. That girl just wants to hug and be hugged. All. The. Time. This explains well the button (pin) that I asked Ellen to make for me a few years ago. It reads, “Take a Step Back”. Some people just need that reminder to get out of my face. Pretty Please.
Much of my day is spent with someone hugging me.
The Love Languages are a helpful tool. There are all kinds of spin-off books now, focusing on Love Languages in marriage, with children, singles, dogs, etc. (I’m kidding about the dogs). It certainly doesn’t explain everything but it is good to identify. Identifying one’s own love language is interesting, but identifying the love language of your loved ones is even better. Love is inherently self-sacrificing, so loving someone in a way that speaks to them is way better than forcing love on them in a way that speaks only to yourself. And that is why I spend much of my day hugging my family members! Except Ellen ;). Unless she asks.