Yet another anti-meme: Languages of Love

[vvvexation]

I had to stop about five questions into that Love Languages quiz everyone is doing, when I realized that the things I was putting a higher priority on were not so much the things I most value, but more the things I don't currently get as much of. Physical touch, for example, is important to me, but I've never really had to think about how important it is because I've hardly ever been involved with someone to whom it didn't seem to come naturally. Verbal affirmation, on the other hand, is something I get less than ideal amounts of (though that's probably due in part to the fact that most of my relationships are pretty ill-defined and thus tough to speak about), so I find myself choosing that as a higher priority because I'd like more of it than I generally get, but not because I'd like more of it than of physical contact.

Frankly, all five of the things listed are important to me, and I really can't say which is the most important. I'm not even sure it's right to pick one. I think in any serious relationship all five of those would have to be present in different amounts, and the amounts can't really be compared because they're on different scales. What matters is not whether I get more of love-expression A than of love-expression B, but whether I get enough of each.

Come to think of it, that's a bit like the way I approach poly. I don't care whether I see more of person A than person B; I care about whether I see each of them as often as I want to, and of course this goes for energy, emotional depth, and other such things as well as time. But it may appear sometimes that I care more about spending time with person A than person B, simply because I don't see person A as often as I'd like and do see person B as often as I'd like, and will thus generally prefer to spend time with A on the few occasions when I have to choose between them.

Comments

[aaangyl.livejournal.com]

I took it with an attitude of "If I had enough of everything, or if all else was equal, which would make me feel more warm fuzzies?" But I actually think mine was pretty accurate, on the relative scale of how much of each I like / what I tend to hurt from lacking first / what I express the most appreciation or give the most Whuffie for. And that's not just romantic relationships, it also translates pretty well to my interactions with people. And on the flipside, it also corresponds to what I tend to default-offer when I want to make someone else feel good; even when I've learned that they like something else better, it takes a conscious act or habit change to dispense the other things in different quantities.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I took it with an attitude of "If I had enough of everything, or if all else was equal, which would make me feel more warm fuzzies?"

I made a halfhearted attempt to do that, but evidently it's difficult if not impossible for me to imagine having enough of everything since it's not an experience I've had so far.

But I actually think mine was pretty accurate, on the relative scale of how much of each I like / what I tend to hurt from lacking first / what I express the most appreciation or give the most Whuffie for.

I think those last two are opposites for me. Some of these signs of affection I sort of take for granted and others I don't expect as much; the ones I expect less I show more appreciation for, but the ones I take for granted are the ones I'd miss first.

And that's not just romantic relationships, it also translates pretty well to my interactions with people.

Hmmm. I think with people I don't have romantic relationships with, all of those things are appreciated but I don't really expect any of them....

wait, aha moment. Signs of affection like that are one thing that differentiates a romantic relationship from a friendship or acquaintanceship. Without them, or with much less of them, I can still be some kinda friends with a person but not maintain a Relationship with them. But it's more a matter of quantitative than qualitative difference, perhaps.

And on the flipside, it also corresponds to what I tend to default-offer when I want to make someone else feel good

I'm not sure if I default-offer the things I need most or just the things that are easiest for me to do.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I guess one of the areas in which deyo and I really get along is that he's such a skin-hungry cuddle slut person who values touch. We seem to speak the same language, that way, and though I don't mind verbal affirmation, I only really need it in stressful situations where we're working out problems, and I need to know that I'm still okay with him.

Interestingly, though, it seems as if whether or not the languages of love quizthing was something you could finish, it's still something of value: It helped you figure out information about yourself that might come in handy.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

And that's why I made this post. I often find these meme-things work that way, you might've noticed, and I enjoy writing out this kind of thing a lot more than I enjoy posting quiz results anyway.

[tsgeisel.livejournal.com]

I post quiz results when I think they're interesting. This one was rather boring.

Also, I had 7's in 3 different categories and a 6 in another. 3 in gift giving.

Like that quiz is telling me very much.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yeah, I hadn't considered whether that might be a factor. I think it's less so in my case, though.

[akienm.livejournal.com]

There's a lot more to the love languages thing than what you're post indicates you're aware of... Decidedly, the web site hosting the love languages quiz doesn't actually talk about the love languages much. The Love Languages idea is based on a book called "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman.

When we started using this material in our coaching work, it made a huge difference. I agree that we all tend to want some of each of these, but what the book and related materials are about comes more to this: If all your needs in all these areas but one were happily met, which would be a deal breaker eventually?

We've had some coaching clients where this is the only tool we've given them, and then they were done with us. Their stuff was resolved to the point that they could take it from there.

We had a lovely example of this in action with a friend of ours (F) and her BF (P). P took F to a lovely dinner at a nice restaurant(gifts/time), got her flowers with a card(gifts), took the weekend off to be with her (time), they had lovely lovemaking that night (touch), made her breakfast (acts of service)... And come monday, she was unhappy with him. This happened just as we were learning about this love languages stuff. In conversations with her therapist and with us, she uncovered that the card with the flowers hadn't had a personalized message in it. She's HUGELY words of affirmation, and so all this other stuff had touched not a whit on the one place she was really looking to hear that she was loved. Thereafter he spent a lot less on all that other stuff, and focused just on words, and she was a happy camper.

For me, long before the quiz I knew (from the book) that touch was my number 1. And Dawn's is Acts of Service. And my relationship with Dawn became much better when I learned to speak acts of service. Before that, our relationship survived because we could both do words of affirmation... but survived would be the right word, not flourished.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes it clearer. I'm still not absolutely sure I can figure out which of these is "it" for me, though. I suspect it's words, but I have a hard time with hypotheticals like this.