Why Are Love Languages So Damn Important?

Dating profiles emphasize love languages because apps like Hinge and Bumble offer them as a popular prompt. This might seem fun and informative, but it can create some big issues with expectations. 

Let’s talk about:

1. What are the five different love languages?

2. Why is it important to define your love language?

3. What does each love language really mean?

4. How to speak each other’s love languages

So let’s first understand how these love languages work, and then we can talk about the specifics of each one. Better yet - let’s learn how using them correctly can improve your chances of a successful relationship.

What Are the Five Love Languages?

I see so many prompts answered with things that aren’t actually love languages. It’s ok to like things and want them expressed to you, but the book by Gary Chapman, called ‘The Five Love Languages’ is a distinct way of viewing relationship components that is well worth reading and applying to your own. 

There are exactly five love languages -  no more, no less:
 

• Physical touch 

• Words of affirmation 

• Gifts 

• Acts of service 

• Quality time 

All five of these are important to people in different orders. I highly suggest taking the quiz so that you know the order of importance of how you feel loved and appreciated in a relationship. 

Why is it Important to Define Your Love Language?

Something to really understand is that all five love languages are important to you - and everyone that you’re going to date. 

However, placing an emphasis on the one that really resonates with you is going to give your partner a lot more to work with than putting three or (gulp) five as the amount that are ‘yours’.

Your love language does not define whether or not your relationship can work. You do not need to have the same love language as your partner. On the contrary, you need to understand your partner's love language as they need to understand yours. 

What Does Each Love Language Really Mean?

Everyone and their desires are unique - which means that a love language will look different in a relationship. However, for the most part, there are some classic guidelines we can use to each of the five love languages.

Physical touch:

Physical touch means that you feel loved and appreciated when your partner touches you. No, it does not have to be sexual. It’s the simple things like hand holding, touching your arm when they talk to you, putting their hand on the small of your back when you’re out walking together. It could be putting your arms around each other or simply touching your feet when you go to bed every night. When your partner touches you, you feel connected to them.

Words of affirmation:

When your partner tells you “you look handsome (or beautiful),” or tells you how much they appreciate something you did for them, or simply just states in words how great you are. Clearly, we all need this to some degree but for some people, they feel really appreciated by hearing this on a regular basis. That’s how they know that they’re loved in the relationship. 

Other people might only need words of affirmation every so often; it may not hold the same weight that it does for someone else. For that person, words of affirmation will be lower on their scale (remember to take the quiz to know where this falls for you). 

Gifts:
For some reason, we seem to think that if we like to receive gifts that it’s frowned upon. I see nothing wrong with feeling appreciated when your partner gives you some type of gift. It does not need to be jewelry or expensive technology - sometimes simply flowers or their favorite candy bar is perfect. A gift doesn’t have to be something big and grandiose. If gifts are truly at the top of your list, own it, it’s OK to feel appreciated by receiving physical gifts.

Women especially don’t like to admit when they feel appreciated by receiving gifts from their partner because it makes them sound like gold diggers. Now, of course, if every gift has to be the newest iPhone or diamond earrings, then yeah - maybe you have a gold digger on your hands. But for a lot of people, receiving a gift doesn’t have a deeper meaning other than caring for your partner. 

Acts of service:

Acts of service are anything from doing the dishes, taking out the trash, running to the store for you, etc. This is a wide range of services from the small quick little. 

“Let me reach that off the top shelf for you”.

Or

“Let me take care of you after your surgery”.

However,  if ‘acts of service’ is not at the top of your list, it doesn’t mean that you don’t appreciate when someone does something for you. Again, all five of these are part of how you feel loved and appreciated in a relationship, but you are going to gravitate towards some more than others. And you might be surprised that it could change from relationship to relationship, as well.

Quality time:

Quality time is a tricky one because people often confuse time spent together as quality time. In reality, they are not the same. 

Here’s an example: you’re sitting side-by-side on the couch watching TV and you are both texting or scrolling through social media on your cell phones. That is not quality time because you’re not connecting and you’re not engaging in each other. Yes it is time together , but it doesn’t allow a couple to nourish their relationship.

Quality might be having a conversation or cuddling, but you are not distracted. Your cell phone creates a fantastic distraction from your partner, and if your partner appreciates quality time, I would suggest putting the cell away for that activity so you can focus solely on your partner.

How to Speak Each Other’s Love Languages

These are the ways in which you feel loved in a relationship. But what about how your partner feels loved? You also have a giving love language, which is how you like to show your love to your partner. 

However, what you give may not be what they need to receive. 

The love language you give should represent your partner’s receiving language, it’s about what that person needs to feel loved and appreciated - not what you want to give. 

Maybe you like buying gifts for your partner, but that’s not how they feel loved and appreciated. Maybe your partner feels loved and appreciated by having quality time together which means you’re going to have to learn how to shift your focus on quality time if you want to make that relationship really work. 

Does it mean you have to stop giving gifts? Of course not. 

Use Love Languages to Build Better Relationships

Remember, all five love languages are important to us, and their emphasis needs to be communicated. If your partner's #1 love language is quality time, then you’ll want to make sure that that is the bulk of the language you give.

Don’t be afraid to have these conversations in your relationships - they will allow you to be the best version of yourself. If you want more information about love, languages, and how to communicate them with your partner check out my book, Get the Girl: Dating the High Value Woman, where we teach you how to properly utilize these techniques for romantic success.