Hello All, and welcome to the next installment of Making my Mark on the world! In this piece, I mention a couple of thoughts on love and my love languages. It is a little raw and is a smattering of thoughts, but as always that is me. Without further ado, my musings on love are below.
In a past post, I shared a beautiful quote by Barbra Cage on love and relationships. It is a quote that really resonates with me. In this post, I wanted to follow up with some additional thoughts on love and relationships.
Is there someone out there for everyone?
This is an old cliche, but to an extent I agree with it. However, like most cliche expressions, it over simplifies things a little bit. I do believe that there is someone out there for everyone. I also believe that there are likely multiple people out there for any given person. As a child, I fell into the trap of believing the fairy tale idea of love and happily ever after. The cliches.
As I’ve grown older I realize that love is not necessarily magical. I do not mean this in a negative way. Love is beautiful, but it is not magic. It is commitment. I have had traditional healthy relationships modeled to me throughout my entire life. My parents have been married 35 years and my grandparents 62 years. My parents and grandparents were fortunate to find each other, and when they did they made a commitment. They made a commitment to stay together. Just because they are really happy together, does not mean that they couldn’t have found another partner. It is also here where I feel compelled to mention that attraction is different from love. Even in a loving relationship, undoubtedly, we will still find others attractive. Which is again where the power of commitment comes in.
Love Languages
Recently, I took the 5 love languages® test in a coaching session. My results are listed below.
Quality time: 33%
Words of affirmation: 27%
Physical touch: 23%
Acts of service: 17%
Receiving gifts: 0%
These results mostly resonate with me. I really value spending time with the people that I care about. In fact, in December I went to the botanical gardens with Jane. They had a model train display. While I enjoy train displays, the true highlight of the trip for me was getting to talk with Jane for nearly an hour. Each of us largely gave our undivided attention to one another, as we pondered all kinds of things. I also enjoy the train rides (or any other ride for that matter) with a friend, where we can just talk and catch up. Quality time is also one of the reasons that I really enjoy experiences. For me, the best part of an experience is often the time that I get to spend with people that I care about.
I am also into words of affirmation. Therefore, it made sense that I had a high percentage here. For me, I really enjoy sending positive quotes and affirmations to the people that I care about. Interestingly, one area that this has manifested is through inspirational memes. Particularly, those with animals. I get a sense of joy from these, and I want to share that joy and happiness with others. Another example, for my MBA studies, I had to complete a group capstone project. To make a long story short, our dynamics were turbulent. Two members feuded. After the project, I sent reassurances to one member stating how much I valued her work and her opinions. I could tell that the group dynamics had impacted her, and that she could use some affirmation regarding her valuable contributions to the group. Indeed, our friendship became stronger after I provided this affirmation.
Physical touch is an interesting one to me. I’ve talked a little bit about this before, but I never used to view myself as much of one for physical touch. I’ll likely devote an entire piece in the future to this language. However, for now I’ll say that it was a higher result than I expected. I do also value services completed by others, but I do not have a lot to say about that right now. I also believe that gift giving at 0% is under represented, but nonetheless highlights that gift giving is not a primary love language for me.
Conclusion
As always, thank you for reading! This post was a little scattershot, but I shared some of my thoughts on long term relationships. I also shared my love languages. If you liked this post, please consider subscribing and sharing Making my Mark on the world. It is a journey to personal wellness filled with insights, and I hope that you’ll join me on this journey!