The 5 languages of love

Amanda Filreis
Staff Writer

The event being described this time is perfect for the month of love. The focus in this instance is on an aspect of love people don’t really think on, how expressions of love are made. 

In this event which took place Monday the CSU, two interns from the Counseling Center informed their audience on what is called the Five Languages of Love. 

A brief overview of the languages being discussed by Dr. Gary Chapman. The five languages brought up were word affirmation, gift giving, service acts, quality time, and physical touch. Dr. Chapman stated in the video that one of the main reasons behind relationship discord is that the messages of love aren’t being communicated properly due to the differences in love languages. This is what made him want to help other people – by informing them of a relationship aspect they might not know about.

Before moving onto a more detailed explanation, the audience was presented with the opportunity to create a profile on the five love languages website in order to take a quiz to help those of attendance determine what their personal language was.

This could be taken as a single or couples quiz. We later found out that the website previously mentioned could provide the same information used in the interview, in case some people wanted to show this topic to their loved ones or if they had difficulties reading the slides of the presentation.

More details were brought up in order to give the viewers a better understanding of their meaning. One point of emphasis was on the gift giving language. The language itself isn’t meant to focus on what the present actually is, it’s about the meaning and thought behind it. Another emphasis point was on the physical touch not being in the bedroom. These are the small amounts of contact such as hugs and hand holding meant to demonstrate romantic feelings toward a partner.

“Most people can relate to all languages of love in some way. While one is more dominant than the others, it’s certainly possible to have more than one love language attributed to a person,” said the interns.

After examples in the different categories were displayed, they introduced date games corresponding to each of the 5 love languages. It was then time for the question segment of the evening, though no questions were asked

“We wanted to do a topic of interest,” said the interns, “we felt that students might benefit from this basic knowledge. This applies to those who are looking for a relationship and those who are already in one.”

One audience member said, “It was helpful since I wasn’t aware of this before.” Another commented, “The website and the free quiz were the most useful. I’ll be sure to look at it later.” Based on these comments, the presenters managed to accomplish what they wanted.

Header photo courtesy of Flickr.