The Five Love Languages

Greed, sloth, envy…no wait, those are the seven deadly sins.

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate is a 1992 book by a gentleman named Gary Chapman that lists five ways to express and experience love which are “words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch.” This book is the current bane of my dating existence.

I have now been asked by at least two guys “what is my love language?” Can you picture me rolling my eyes? Good. I would rather be asked, “what’s my sign?” Frankly, I think my sign tells more about me than my love language but let me continue.

The first time I was asked about my love language, I had never heard about the book. I was having a nice stroll with a guy when all of sudden, he turns to me and goes “so what’s your love language?” Umm blank stare on my end. I’m thinking “is English too obvious of an answer? I mean does he want to read poetry to me in Spanish or one of the other Romance languages — I can be down for that. I might even enjoy poetry in German depending on the inflection used.” I think he could tell by the confused look in my eyes that I had no idea what he was referring to so he explained. He explained that his love language was “quality time” and “words of affirmation.” I praised him then for telling me all about it (I can be a quick learner). I then said “I guess my love language is a little bit of all of the above?” He gave me a sad look like “oh you aren’t trying. I guess you don’t know yourself very well.”…