Aatalie Buia probably won’t date a man if he refuses to at least have a conversation about love languages. “It’s not necessarily a deal breaker, but I’ve had arguments with men about it on dates,” says Buia, who is 35 and lives in Toronto. “If someone thinks love languages are silly or silly, it means we don’t see eye-to-eye on communication.”
Buia only recently learned about the five love languages, after leaving a marriage of 10 years and re-entering single life. Her friends turned her on to a quiz that purports to tell you how to best receive and express love. It is based on The 5 Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Partner. The book has sold 20 million copies since it was published in 1992 by Gary Chapman.
This week, however, the Washington Post reported on new research that found there isn’t enough empirical evidence about love languages to support their promised effectiveness.
You don’t need to read the book to understand the basics of love language. Chapman claims there are five different ways to receive and express love: words of affirmation (giving compliments or affirmation), acts of service (doing something helpful, such as taking out the trash), physical touch (PDA, a hug or a kiss), quality time (putting the phones away and being around each other), and gift giving (thoughtful little gifts every now and then). Knowing which love languages you and your partner favor will seemingly help you talk through disagreements and give each other what you want from a relationship.
Love languages are a staple of first date conversations, an icebreaker that lives somewhere on the spicy scale between “what’s your sign?” and “do you want children?”. But scientists and cynics have long called it an unreliable theory. For one, Chapman is not a psychologist. He is a longtime Baptist pastor who has counseled couples through the church.
In their paper, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, researchers reviewed all the scientific material published on the concept. They found that most people do not have a “primary” love language. It’s common to connect with all five options—or even more, since researchers believe there are more than five categories for expressing love in a “meaningful way.” It also may not matter whether you’re dating a fellow gift giver or physical toucher: According to the paper, couples who say they “speak” the same love languages don’t report greater satisfaction than those who speak separate languages.
Even in light of this paper, love language fans remain convinced by the theory. Buia compared a primary love language to a zodiac sign — “you just have it,” she said. “It would be great if it had scientific backing, but it’s not like we just pulled this thing out of thin air.”
Breanna Walther believes that learning love languages and attachment styles is another psychology term that has entered the pop cultural lexicon because of a best-selling book – enriched her relationships. “It helped explain to me why I dated certain people, and why it didn’t work out,” says Walther, who is 32 and lives in New York. “Why can’t they just let us have fun with it? If we want to live in our delusions, let us.”
And Sunny Daye, a 27-year-old musician from Houston, Texas, feels equally unmoved. “Everyone [Chapman] did, were words for things that existed forever,” they said. “If you know your partner loves flowers, and you bring flowers home, that’s gift-giving. I don’t know how you can deny something like getting your girlfriend flowers.”
But Daye believes that love languages can shift and change as people do. When they first took the quiz at 19, it told them their love language was acts of service. It made sense at the time. “At the time I was in college, working as a professional photographer, and had a lot going on, so if you could help make my days run smoothly, I’d appreciate it,” they said.
A few years later they took the quiz again. It said that their primary love language was words of affirmation. This also came true. “I was in a relationship where I was really deprived of that, so it became important to me,” Daye explained. Today, their love language is gift-giving: “It will always be a big one for me because that’s how my family showed love when I was a kid.”
Daye is currently in a relationship, but they say talking about love languages was “non-negotiable” during their dating days. “If I’m dating someone and I ask them how they show love and how they would like to receive it, and they say it’s made up, we don’t have to date,” they said. “I stopped dating people because they didn’t follow my love language.”
For his part, Chapman stands by his theory. “I think the fact that so many millions of people have read the book, so many people have found it helpful in their relationship, that I’m convinced it can have a tremendously positive impact on a marriage,” he told the Post. said. .
For Buia, love languages don’t just help form romantic connections. “I get together with my single friends and we talk about guys who put their love languages in their Tinder or Hinge profiles. We all follow the same meme stories about this stuff,” she said. “It’s almost a form of community in that way.”
