Love Languages & Lovers
Have you ever tried to use lipstick as a deodorant? Have you ever eaten soup with a knife? Have you ever tried tirelessly to fit a square peg in a circular hole? Most likely, you haven’t because you’re a human with some sense: you know not to do things over and over if they don’t work out. This also might be why you’re single — please hear me out.
Too often, people looking for love can get caught in the crossfires of miscommunication. Like when your touchy-feely new beau gets offended when you don’t want to share a booth with them — they see it as you rejecting an expression of their love while you, very reasonably, might not want to be squished together in a booth. Or when you shower someone with compliments and cute names, and they respond by getting you a scented candle. It’s whenever you feel like you aren’t loving in the same language as your partner.
There are better ways to say “I love you.” The famed “Five Love Languages” book by Gary Chapman details differing ways people generally communicate affection; gifts, words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, quality time, and, in my ex-boyfriend’s case, absence. These five methods determine how you express love and, equally important, how you receive it.
The languages of love are pretty self-explanatory:
- Gifts, items, and acts of material or financial value.
2.Words of affirmation that reiterate love, compassion, and comfort.
3. Physical touch, such as hugs, kisses, PDA, and intimacy.
4. Acts of service, like completing chores or listening to vent sessions.
5. Quality time (Can be as simple as sitting next to each other in silence.)
Unsurprisingly, these love languages can coordinate with you and your partner’s horoscope sign. Water signs — Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio — are suckers for quality time and physical touch. Show your water sign you love them with a PDA-infused date. Capricorns, Virgos, and Tauruses, the Earth signs like the transactional clarity of gifts and words of affirmation. They are measured, meaningful, and malleable to the needs of the situation.
Fire signs need your performance. They need your devotion. And they need you to surrender to love. Acts of service are the best way to shower your Fire sign paramore with love. Air signs are, between you and me, the best to love. They will take any language with aplomb and gratitude and are sure to match you in compassion in no time.
Dating apps are a straightforward way to express your love language and detect others’. If you want to show that you receive love through gifts or quality time, say something clever on your profile: “buy me food or make time for me after work, and I’m all yours.” If you want to demonstrate that you give love best through physical touch or acts of service, try saying that you are “searching for someone who loves being the big spoon and getting back rubs.”
But, you can also be upfront and simply tell your newest match what your love language is. Iris pairs you with people based on your shared intuition, making it even easier to be open and honest about yourself from the start.