Gary Chapman: a marriage counselor, king of “scientific” anecdotes, absolute heartthrob, and a simplistic, misleading hack. You may remember this guy from your intro to communications class in college, or if you’re like any person who's tried to navigate the steamy yet trite world of understanding a whole ass other human being, you’ve heard of this chap, or at least his very explosive book and/or theories. Gary Chapman is the love guru of the century, publishing his highly esteemed book titled, “The Five Love Languages”. Under no basis and precedence in scientific or psychological foundations, the world readily received and revered Chapman’s apparently groundbreaking theory of love on all fours without hesitation (despite him not taking us to dinner first). If you haven’t read the book, Chapman, with his extensive background in marriage counseling, compiled a whopping total of 5 love languages each and every human being on earth is keener on receiving from a romantic partner than others. These love languages are as follows:
Quality Time
Words of Affirmation
Physical Touch
Acts of Service
Gift Giving
Riveting stuff, and I don’t mean that facetiously. To give credit where it’s due, Chapman undertook a topic that has perplexed psychologists, lovers, psychologist lovers alike. Love is daunting. A tale as old as time itself, the subject of countless love songs, prose, architecture, art, books, and murder mystery series. Even the daddies daddy of all Western Literature, Sir William Shakspeare reveled in the eternal enigma of love; the simultaneous disconnect and magnetism of love, requited or not, toxic or fulfilling, carnal or platonic. One fact does remain though, to be human is to love, baby. Chapman said it best himself,
“Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments.”
And our boy Chapman, with his PhD. in Theology and background in anthropology, also has his own take on love. Surprisingly, one that has stuck itself to the modern meta-psychological world of today, and seems to be the topic of conversation of only the most “woke” discussions on all things love and TLC.
The major gist of the extensive and rather exhaustingly anecdotal book can be summed up rather simply. We, as natural lovers of love, seek out a certain type of reciprocation of love. Love, as we were introduced to it through life, movies and books seemed pretty linear and cataclysmic. Sparks, butterflies, pop a baby out or two, and you’ve got the foundations of some heart-warming storybook love. It's a very one-size-fits-all model. Which is great! If you’re illustrated in 2D with no resemblance of higher intelligence and interpersonal communication abilities. Life and all its significance in individuality, nature, nurture, all factor into our development (for better or for worse), we humans actually grow and develop to become actual complicated pieces of shit, so a one size fits all approach in love is surface level, lackluster and vapid.
Alas! Let’s also not insult our own intelligence here. I know what you’re thinking, “I hate sparks, butterflies, and popping out two and a half twats, I love REAL love.” I hear you. But what’s real love? What is YOUR love? Turns out our preferences in love are largely dictated by our upbringing, how we were introduced to what love looked like, how we sought to get care from others based on our experiences. These experiences dictate our vision of what love is meant to be, what it looks like, feels like to us. What a shitstorm, if you ask me. Might as well call this our second personality. Well, according to Chapman, the way you show and receive love the best is a relatively unique combination of all the 5 love languages at various degrees, mentioned previously. People break up, fight, whatever it may be for various reasons, but lack of communication seems to dominate these reasons. The story is all too familiar. After your third divorce, you may be starting to notice a pattern, if you’re as keen as you are. “I did everything I could possibly do to show him I love him, how could he not see it?”. Well, you idiot, clearly you didn’t. But don’t beat yourself up, hotshot. All is fair in love and war, even misinterpretations and countless divorces.
Just take a dab at Chapman’s approach, clearly, you didn’t love them the right way. I’d be willing to say that it may even be that they didn’t love you the RIGHT way either. You’ve spent countless times and instances reflecting on the moments where you’ve run all of their errands, left thoughtful hand-written notes; you feel like you’ve done it all right. Still, their qualms and complaints of you acting distant, unloving, and out of touch with their needs seem to creep up out of nowhere. This illustrates Chapman’s disconnect, we give out the love we most readily consider to be love, while another person’s perception of what love is, what it feels like, is quite different. For you, it’s the handwritten notes, lessening the burden of menial to-do’s your S.O. has on their plate. To them, it’s quality time spent with you, being held, and offering words of support and admiration. Ah yes, love lost in translation.
So when met with a similar situation, or if you’ve recollected any memories over any of your past relationships, heartbreaks, romances by now, you may have seen a pattern. Chapman states, that in order to really truly understand and take part in activities and deliberately loving another person, we must get to know our own love language preferences, be able to communicate to our partners effectively of those particular love languages, actively tend to them, and communicate their lack if needed, same goes for the other person. Then, wham bam, the enigma of love is an enigma no more! Congratulations!...But not so fast. In fact, there seems to be quite a lot of stones left unturned. You may even be thinking to yourself that issues that arise in a particular relationship are way more dimensional, especially when it comes to love in the digital age, as a millennial, Gen Z's, or really anyone as a matter of fact. Mix that in with a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance, things start to seem a bit more complicated. Additionally, what Chapman fails to recognize, in his simple, and rather matter of fact book, are the very real risks that arise with the concept of love languages and how they’re used/perceived pre-relationship, during it, and post-relationship (if applicable). You couldn’t have thought that the answer to love could’ve come so easily, and matter-of-factly did you? Of course not. In fact, this concept of love languages has existed long before Chapman’s book. If anything, he re-wrapped an old gift from a friend in some pretty and over-priced wrapping paper.
END OF PART 1
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