Touch - this can be a high five, it can be sex, or anything in between. The type of touching is (usually) not the important part, mainly that it's there.
Talk - telling someone how you feel. For some, it doesn't matter how much you SHOW that you care about them, they need to hear you SAY that you do.
Time - making time for the one you care about. For these people, it's important that if you're busy, you make sure they know you're making an effort to create time for them.
Gifts - once again, this is not about the size of the gift. This is sometimes misconstrued as being a trait of materialist people. It's not. It's about having a physical manifestation of someone having thought about you, and cared enough to buy/make something for you.
Service - this one's a little weird, and doesn't work for all relationships. The idea is basically that you help out with chores around the house.
Service is an important exception because what I like about the other four is that they can be applied to all relationships: family, friends, co-workers, lovers.
I arranged these in the order I think of them, as it's the order in which they're most important to me. Those who know me will attest that I touch people almost inappropriate amounts, and constantly tell my friends and loved ones how wonderful they are. Because I react so strongly to Touch and Talk, though, it's important for me to remember that not everyone does. If I'm in a relationship with someone who is a Time or a Gifts person, it would be easy for them (even with all of my hugs and compliments) to feel slighted. This concept opened my eyes in a big way. I am very intent on making sure my loved ones know they're important to me, and to realize that I may not be doing it in a way that will get through to them was worrisome. I've now gotten in the habit of making this a conversation I have with people within the first few times I hang out with them, partially because I find it fascinating, and partially because it's great knowing the best way to communicate with someone early on.
So think about these. For some of you, which languages you speak may jump out at you, like they did with me. For some of you, it may take some thinking. Do it anyway. It's good for you. Talk about it with your partner. Talk about it with your friends. Maybe don't talk about it with your co-workers. That's a little weird.
I haven't read Chapman, but I would like to make a case for service (at least as you describe it). Although I can't claim it to be the most important of the 5 for myself either, I certainly see it as a key aspect of many relationships (even ones of a platonic nature).
ReplyDeletePor ejemplo: Have you lived with a roommate who never does his/her dishes? Or takes out the communal trash? Or participates in other ostensibly simple chores? After a certain period of time, regardless of how patient/forgiving you naturally are, this will eventually create tension in your relationship. You will begin to passive aggressively take notice of a dirty toilet, of the overflowing recycling container, or of the hair in the bathtub drain. You will begin to make lists of simple tasks that they refuse to perform with the hope of being able to check these items off when the roommate in question has completed them. They do not, and the unchecked list becomes a piece of damning proof as to their careless treatment, not of the house, but of your relationship.
A less drastic example: You live with/work with/are in a relationship with a person who is a responsible adult and cleans up after themselves. You are having a stressful day and leave your plate from lunch in the sink, intending to wash it after completeing some task or other. Upon returning to the sink, your plate has been cleaned. Great feeling, no?
Service is not merely important because of the end result (clean dishes, folded laundry, etc.) but for the time that a person took out of their day to accomplish such a task for you. In the same way that making a gift combines the language of gifts and time, so too does service function as a combination of multiple love languages.
Sorry for the rant of sorts. I had a rough day today and Claire told me there was a surprise waiting for me on the kitchen table when I got home. Indeed, there was a very tasty chocolate bar. However, she had also done all of the dishes and cleaned off the kitchen table (both formidable tasks, as you know). The chocolate was wonderful, but the time that she spent in the service aspect was more wonderful still.
Did anyone notice how all of these are cool to do for yourself except for Talk? What's up with that? I, for one, commit to affirm my love for myself verbally as well as by Service. Wait, I mean Touch.
ReplyDeleteMan, i would be into this blog... but only if you started posting interviews with people about their sex lives.
ReplyDeleteOr, dragon sex with cars.
Each of these [except for touch] has, as a significant sub-component, a commitment of time. As humans have only a finite amount of time, perhaps the use or sharing of that precious commodity with or for another speaks to an unconscious recognition and appreciation in all of us. It shows that the 'giver of time' cares about us.
ReplyDelete@Humus:
ReplyDeleteWhile that's certainly true that time must be spent for the other languages, the key difference is that it's not time spent with the person. The point of talk is that they need time with the person to feel like they're cared about.
@Kim:
Point taken. I guess that I've always thought of the roommate situation as part of the "contract" of living with someone, not a way to show that you care about them. That being said, your example of Claire cleaning the kitchen and leaving you a chocolate bar makes perfect sense to me.
I'm with kim on this one: i do not think that service is in any way exclusive to romantic relationships. Doing someone else's maintenance, getting in the bilge to help with taking off a tank lid, even just offering to be the guy who goes on a drink run for your busy brothers-at-arms are all examples I see day to day at my job as a sailor of service as a way of saying "i appreciate you, and we are in this together", which i would say is love.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth noting that all of these examples could also fit under the category of time as a love language. But in an environment where there is no such thing as enough time, taking someone else's load and spending your own resources (i.e. time) on it _is_ service.