Love Languages

Pretty recently, I read a book called The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Despite it being poorly written – maybe you can look past this if you didn’t spend four years studying creative writing in college – it was a very insightful and useful book for those in, and even out, of love. 5LLs came highly recommended by my sister and Ryan’s friend Susan, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Plus, being able to borrow a book puts it very high on my “to read” list, and my sister had a copy that she happily lent to me. I’m always torn between borrowing/buying/renting books (you know, from the library). I love free things, so it should be an easy choice, but I maybe equally love my bookshelf and the books that sit on it. Anywho, 5LLs was a borrowed book, and I read it in about 24 hours, which proves that it was pretty darn good and kept my interest throughout.

The 5LLs are:
• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Receiving Gifts
• Acts of Service
• Physical Touch

There is a quiz in the back that helps you identify which love language you speak, but I kind of disagreed with it. Maybe just because my results weren’t what I expected/wanted them to be. Quality time is an obvious one for me, but I didn’t expect words of affirmation to be so high on my list. When I told this to my brother-in-law and sister, I got a “What do you mean you didn’t expect that to be high on your list?! You definitely NEED and LOVE words of affirmation!” type of response. So. There’s that. And the picture up top – the one that looks like we are having a serious discussion … maybe even a mini-argument – nope, that’s me asking/begging/pleading for words of affirmation. I’m not sure how this moment got captured on camera, but I remember exactly what words were being exchanged. I was having one of my many self-conscious, unconfident moments and Ryan was consoling me with sweet words. PROOF.

What’s your love language? You can ask your loved one if you can’t guess it yourself, and there are a whole slew of quizzes online. Or you can buy, read, and then share the book with someone special. I recommend it.