A New Love Language...

We've all heard about "love languages." Maybe you haven't yet read the entire book: The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, a 1992 book by Gary Chapman. Regardless, I'm going to make the assumption that maybe you need a brief recap, so here we go:

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate is a 1992 book by Gary Chapman. It outlines five general ways that romantic partners express and experience love, which Chapman calls "love languages". They are acts of service, gift-giving, physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation.

So now that we have jogged our memories, maybe this connected some previous experiences with taking the quiz, a time where we considered our love language(s), or maybe had conversations with friends, a spouse, or family. If you are like me, you have a general idea of what your strongest "love language" appears to be, according to Chapman's prescribed scale. That is, if we make the assumption that this book holds all of the answers.

But ultimately, I don't want to focus on this book, or the author, as the topic of this post. This book was written by a Christian Pastor and is not based on any scientific or social research. As the daughter of a Christian Pastor, I mean no disrespect to the author, Gary Chapman. I just think that context is important...

Like many self-help books, Chapman gives us a "recipe" or a "code" to figure out ourselves and our partners, so we can create a magically fulfilling relationship. The issue here is that there are only FIVE love languages. Clearly, we cannot boil our wants/needs in a relationship down to just FIVE small categories. I am sure we could come up with endless ways to categorize new love languages, but I'm going to focus on my top two that don't fall into Chapman's perfect little boxes:

1. Asking Questions:

I think my strongest love language is most certainly tied to my childhood and wanting to feel seen and heard. I wanted people to ask me questions! I wanted to honor my midwestern upbringing, where you instinctively know not to dominate conversations or boast, but yet I also wanted so badly to be interesting, liked, and loved by others. I associate friends/family/a spouse asking questions of me as their genuine interest in me as a person. It means you love me so much that you want to know what is in my heart. Often, at a party, I'll find myself engaging with a stranger. I may bombard them with 874 questions. I do this because I genuinely want to know someone, but I'm sure it can sometimes come off as an interrogation. Sometimes this "social dance" is reciprocated. Many times, it is not. It definitely leaves me feeling a little rejected and lonely. Ultimately, I know this has much more to do with me, and my desire to be fully seen than it has to do with the other person. Clearly, I have a lot more introspective work to do on this issue.

2. Solitude

This one is pretty simple and straightforward. I need complete solitude and silence to recharge my batteries. I'm a highly sensitive person. Loud noises, too much stimulation, or big crowds can deplete me very quickly. Although I'm an extravert in many ways, the older I get, the more in touch I am with my introverted self. I need my friends, family, and most importantly, my significant other to understand and share in the need for solitude. I'm very lucky to have a spouse who understands and encourages my need for weekly solitude and supports my "she shed" (more on this in a later post).

So, now I would love to hear YOUR additional love languages!

What would you add to a love language book?

Please add your thoughts to the comments below.

I will end this with my favorite poem:

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

***Sidenote: After I started drafting this blog post, I heard an amazing podcast by my favorite author, Glennon Doyle. The title is actually "WTF With The Five Love Languages?"

If you want to dive into this a bit deeper, I highly recommend this podcast.