The Five Love Languages is a bestselling book that discusses the five essential ways that people “speak and understand emotional love.” The primary love languages include Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch, but many readers are unaware of the remaining seventeen categories, which are:
- Build Them A Temple Complex And Bury Their Friends And Servants Therein In An Ash-White City Of The Dead
- Seven Long Years I Served For Thee, The Glassy Hill I Clamb For Thee, Thy Bloody Clothes I Wrang For Thee, And Wilt Thou Not Waken And Turn To Me?
- Silent And Unexpressed Agony
- Shapeshifting
- They Give You Their Twin, Who Was A Boy In Disguise
- Sewing A Shirt Made Of Nettle-Flax To Turn You From A Bird Back Into Your Original Form
- Loving And Accepting You For The Magicked Bird You Now Are Instead Of Trying To Change Me, Karina
- Destroys Your Enemies Without Your Having To Ask
- Going Away
- Their Shade Guides You Through A Chaste Journey Of The Afterlife Then Exhorts You To Entrust Your Soul To Jesu, Not In My Mortal Affection
- Holds You While You Turn Into Snow-White Bull, A Jet-Black Bullock, A Red Cockerel, A Squalling Infant, And A Burning Brand
- O I forbid you, maidens a’,
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tam Lin is there - Chesed
- Regularly Says “Well, She Shouldn’t Have Said That To You”
- Not Pretending They Don’t Know The Blinking Light On The Dishwasher Means The Dishwasher Is Clean And You Should Empty It
- Willing To Pretend Not To Be Annoyed Ever
- Burns The Topless Towers Of Ilium
- Offers You A Bannock From Her Own Storage Even Though You Are In The Guise Of An Ugly Old Wise-Woman
- L’Amor Che Move Il Sole E Altre Stelle
- Retreats To Niflheim For Your Sake
- Will Leave The Room When You’re Watching A Musical Because You Both Know If They Stay They’re Just Going To Make Fun Of It
- Kills The False Bride For Thee
- Trapped In An Eternal Windstorm, Forever Swept Through The Air Just As They Were Once Swept Sway By Their Passions
- Cut A Silmaril From The Crown Of Morgoth, Then Fed It To Carcharoth And Slew Him
- Is Summoned When You Turn The Bracelet Thrice On Your Wrist And Call Their True Name As They Promised You On Your Wedding-Night
- Won’t Send You Links That You Both Know Will Just Upset You
Writes a comment praising your article.
BTW this is great.
I think that Destroys Your Enemies Without You Having To Ask is actually the majority of all Acts of Service.
The really worthwhile ones definitely.
While I appreciate the gesture, I can destroy mine own enemies all on my own. I would hate to think that my years of toil in learning their weaknesses, foibles, and insecurities would be obliterated by an act of love.
But going away is like the biggest act of love ever.
I’m choosing to read it as destroying thine “light work” enemies. Like the ones whose transgressions are such that they must be destroyed (obviously) but aren’t interesting or challenging enough to warrant the amount of attention –and thus validation– a personal destruction would require.
That’s a good point. It would be great to have somebody else destroy the minions of my greatest enemies, which I think would inspire an extra high level of fear in my nemeses.
It’s not that your True Love thinks you can’t destroy your enemies, but that they’re willing to act on your intelligence to spare you the trouble. Unless, of course, you want that satisfaction for yourself, in which case your True Love will provide light refreshments afterwards.
Oh my god, snacks would be so amazing after a vanquishing.
THAT is true love. Somebody just handing me a block of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar cheese and some Cracked Pepper Triscuits after I destroy somebody’s dreams and hopes. Oof. I’m just a little verklempt thinking about it.
Admiring my fearsome splendor in a way that doesn’t require any response from me (i.e. not “oh my god that was so hot let us perform sex together now that you’re all tired from the dream-crushing”*) is an additional act of devotion.
*unless I’m in that kind of mood, which my True Love will know because I will clearly express my interest in post-vanquishing sexytimes
“Cut A Silmaril From The Crown Of Morgoth, Then Fed It To Carcharoth And Slew Him”
*flails*
He Went To Jared.
Brav-o!
*offers supporting flails*
I was WAITING for a Tolkien reference and I was certainly not disappointed. The Toast! You are my people! *swoons*
“Destroys Your Enemies Without Your Having To Ask” will work for me every time
We knew Bruno and Guy in “Strangers on a Train” were meant to be.
Criss-crossed lovers
The last one is the exactly my love language and I need to tell this to all my friends. Yes, I KNOW it’s terrible, there was never any doubt I’d agree that it was terrible, why did you have to make me aware of its existence and make me look at it with my own eyes?
Similarly: Won’t Read the Comments on a Controversial Article and Then Tell You About Them
…I need to teach my partner those two.
Or: Reminds You, When You Forget, Never To Read The Comments
But Will Listen, For A Short Time Only, To You Complain About The Comments And Commenters When You Do Read Them.
I am really falling down on the job wrt this one. In my defense, my partner sometimes does as well? But honestly mostly it’s me, because I am the grey stormcloud emoji and he is any one of the sunny cheerful emoji*. Something else to work on, great!
*congratulations. how wonderful.
Dudefriend just shared with me the horror that is Vajankle. But purely so we can make fun of the product and anyone inclined to order it.
“Sewing A Shirt Made Of Nettle-Flax To Turn You From A Bird Back Into Your Original Form”
I was trying to think of what story this was in a few weeks ago and couldn’t and it was driving me INSANE. I had almost forgotten about it, but here we are.
It’s an Irish folklore tale that Juliet Mariller developed into a book called Daughter of the Forest, if that’s any help.
Mallory also did a version of it, at some point.
Isn’t it a part of The Tain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Swans
It was definitely this! Thank god, I kept going back to the Children of Lir and was like “…ok, this is close, but really not right at all.” I think I had an Irish Fairy Tale book and an animated series of Grimm’s fairy tales that had similar styles and was mixing them up in my head.
In other news, there are WAY too many fairytales about children being turned into swans.
It’s “The Six Swans.” Or I think also there are versions where it’s seven swans. It is Some Number of Swans.
You would never have forgotten it, had you grown up with *horribly* illustrated children’s books, *especially* Andersen’s tales… and then, out of the night that covered you, black as the pit from pole to pole, you had laid your hands on a pair of books of fairy-tales with the stunning illustrations of the great Libico Maraja <3
(Same explanation for my infatuation with Arjuna from a retelling of several stories from the Mahabharata. Also – a book with African folktales with the most gorgeous illustrations that there ever were!)
Here she is, Eliza, with nettles but sans wild swans… (sorry, I still don’t have a clue how to post images here :/)
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d6/47/2…
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/89/a1/0…
I like to think of the version from Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, except that was Three Ravens. Dang, that series was good stuff.
In lieu of your “Willing To Pretend Not To Be Annoyed Ever,” I recall my favorite/worst break-up story I have ever heard, in which my friend Joel broke up with his college girlfriend by asking, “I mean, I’m sure I annoy you as much as you annoy me, right?” A No-Love Language, if you will.
Joel was giving a gift. If she was always annoyed by him, it was validating. PLUS! She can pretend to him she was not, and get extra outraged by that comment, thus leveraging more emotional currency out of the otherwise humiliating experience of being broken up with.
If she wasn’t always annoyed with him (but she was), then she just gets the second part, which is still pretty good.
Finally, it is the gift of a good break up story, which just gives and gives and gives. Honestly we should all be so lucky. The times I was broken up with I just remember misery and humiliation but no actual snappy lines that I can retell in comments sections. I do remember an ex boyfriend, who cheated on me copiously and gaslighted me about it skillfully, saying “if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t do anything differently”. That actually made me run to the bathroom and dry heave! But it was long after we had broken up, so doesn’t count.
Well, he does NOW.
Oh crap, my primary love language was “Cutting you lots of slack when you are annoying, because surely you are constantly doing the same for me, right?” My whole world view has shifted on its axis and I am only left with “Looking interested when you tell me interminably long stories about work concerning people and situations I don’t know or care about.” I don’t know if my marriage can survive this.
Holds You While You Turn Into Snow-White Bull, A Jet-Black Bullock, A Red Cockerel, A Squalling Infant, And A Burning Brand
Having been at the mercy of a particularly intense course of steroids, I can tell you this is legit.
Oh god yes. I spent most of half a year on prednisone, thanks to weeks at 60mg and needing a super long taper. My partner is a SAINT for not dumping me in a cave and visiting only long enough to deliver food and remind me to go to bed.
I was mostly on 20mg, but it took me from September to this month (April) to successfully taper off. I was on it for 12 of the past 15 months. I finally feel like a person again.
I’ve only ever done the 2-week ‘oh shit poison ivy’ course of prednisone, and even that made me gain 15 pounds because I was hungry ALL THE TIME. And irritable. And irrationally happy. And 100% unable to sleep. I don’t even want to think about months-long bouts of that drug.
Wow, I’m on prednisone right now because I met some plants, and this is accurate. I keep cycling between the verge of tears, fearlessness, extreme fearfulness, wild optimism, and intense cuddliness. The dude I have recently acquired will be put to the test soon.
Slew for you a hecatomb of his finest oxen, then offered his best libations at your feet.
Holds You While You Turn Into Snow-White Bull, A Jet-Black Bullock, A Red Cockerel, A Squalling Infant, And A Burning Brand.
This is from an actual myth, right? I feel like it is, and I’m trying to remember which one, but I can’t and it’s killing me. Maybe an old Irish myth…?
it is one of those myths that show up everywhere. I think it is called “transformation chase”.
Not sure if it’s these exact transformation, but this is definitely in the Peleus/Thetis myth.
Mine is Silent and Unexpressed Agony with a side of Takes Bullet For You in Improbable Sudden Dramatic Situation, Dies In Your Arms While Making Wisecrack about Always Having a Crush on You.
This is the love I always wanted to perform, in my teens and twenties. It’s nice to know at least one person out there wants that kind of love!
Oh- I was thinking that that was how I wanted to *express* love (the romantic kind; the affectionate kind consists of getting people stuff they wanted from the library) but now I’m envisioning two people each trying to take a bullet for the other at the same time and both getting bruised and embarrassed but not actually *shot*.
Eponine NOOOOOOOOOO! You can do so much better!
Any woman can do better than dying for a man, dammit!
We recently watched the movie follow-up to a British series we liked that had a woman taking a bullet for a man she liked in the series finale, and spent the whole time wishing he had been the one to die and she had been the one the movie was about.
I almost spit out my drink. Sixteen year old self needed this comment.
Seriously he’s the WORST in the book, and only slightly less THE WORST in the musical.
Took the Advice of the Old Crone Down the Street and, On Your Wedding Night, Insisted That You Cast a Snakeskin before She Would Remove One of Her Silken Shifts, and Did Lay Each Shift O’er Each Skin; and when All Your Skins Were Cast, She Whipped You With Enough Whips that a Ten-Year-Old Boy Could Hold In His Arms (and he, well-grown for his age), then did Wash You In Lye, and then in Milk, and then did Finally Fall Asleep, awaking in the morning to see you Transformed from a Vile Serpent into a Quicksilver Prince As Handsome as the Grass is Green.
Folklore: actually just a cover for gonzo BDSM.
That’s how I approach my poetry based in folklore.
The photo choice for this article is A++++. The “lovers” sketches are some of the top Will Ferrell bits of all time
Dude, yes, I started laughing the second I saw this post. MY LOVAH
Agreed its a great photo, but it also makes me deeply uncomfortable… is that my love language?
Also, WHY WOULD YOU EAT IN A HOTTUB!?!? That would take forever to clean if it spilt, and then you’d be sitting in dirty food water much like a dishwasher machine.
Ugh, a dude kept calling me “sensual” and I told him to stop because it makes me think of these characters. He pouted for a bit said I completely ruined the word for him. I told him that wasn’t a bad thing.
I am involved with someone who is really more of a lover than a partner, but I can’t bring myself to use that word because it conjures up these characters.
Would like to think I’m “Holds You While You Turn Into Snow-White Bull, A Jet-Black Bullock, A Red Cockerel, A Squalling Infant, And A Burning Brand”
but am actually “Seven Long Years I Served For Thee, The Glassy Hill I Clamb For Thee, Thy Bloody Clothes I Wrang For Thee, And Wilt Thou Not Waken And Turn To Me?”
That is, I’ll do things for you whether you asked me to do them or not, and then be whiny when you don’t respond with gratitude that rapidly transforms to adoration.
WHOOPS that got a little real there, sorry about that.
…oh shit. You’re so right, and this is so me.
You looked real purty clambing that hill. (Does that help?)
*twirls unashamedly*
aw, that one’s from The Black Bull of Norroway which is genuinely one of my favorite fairy tales and the heroine is very brave and resourceful, she just gets desperate in a bad situation!
You are kind! My problem is I get desperate in REGULAR situations.
Yep. But it’s so hard to get over because it’s like “What do you MEAN you didn’t notice that you kept saying you wanted those bloody clothes? What did you THINK was going to happen?”
‘Chesed’ – ok, I lost it.
Gentile that I am, I had to google it.
Honestly, I’m am Jewish and I had to google it… but only because I kept reading it as the anglicized CH sound so I was like… Cheesed? Chessed? Then I googled it and was like, oh, Chesed with the hard ch, I know what THAT is.
Ohhhh! I thought it was Middle-English “chosen”, as in
“I syng of a mayden
þat is makeles,
kyng of alle kynges
to here sone she ches” (where “ches” = “chose”)
but i just googled it too, so we all learned something tonight
I totally read it as “cheesed” and just rolled with it because I’m from Wisconsin and cheese is a good way to love someone.
i see your chesed and raise you tiphereth. You expect my love to be untempered? GET IT TOGETHER, Ortberg.
Made even better when you realize that, to the kabbalists, chesed is the total melding of all things, the breaking down of boundaries. In other words, co-dependency.
FYI many of these just go under what gay men refer to as (active/passive) “Tam Lin”-ing. The old hanky code color was “ever-changing”.
This, 100%. Partner is kind enough to indulge my Hamilton mania, especially when I’m cleaning, but I know he would prefer if I cut into his sportsball time less.
Will Leave The Room When You’re Watching A Musical Because You Both Know If They Stay They’re Just Going To Make Fun Of It
My wife refrains from making fun of the fact that I listen to the OBC recording daily.
I refrain from talking about Hamilton with her.
Love! It is a many-splendored thing.
I am a huge musical nerd and my bestie is not, so he leaves me alone to watch my musicals and doesn’t even make fun of me. This is definitely our love language– we ruthlessly mock each other about pretty much everything else.
GOING AWAY
THE TRUEST KIND OF LOVE THERE IS
This is such an important one for me and my partner. I mean, I had an important exam not too long ago, and he intentionally made plans with a friend that would take him away from the house for most of the weekend beforehand. *swoon*
THAT IS A DAMN GOOD MAN.
Mine moved out.
We are now much happier.
This is why my boyfriend and I are having separate bedrooms and bathrooms when we move in together. True love.
My boyfriend’s is “Willing To Pretend Not To Be Annoyed Ever.” Considering his obsessions with extreme haunted houses and the looming danger of artificial intelligence, I wish it were “Won’t Send You Links That You Both Know Will Just Upset You.”
If you don’t think about Roko’s basilisk, there’s no logical universe in which it can take its revenge on you.
(Sorry.)
OH MY GOD, yes, there have definitely been Roko’s basilisk-related links … and comment threads where Eliezer Yudkowsky freaks out about people mentioning it (and then, for good measure, Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter fan fiction because why not follow the rabbit hole all the way down).
Not to fangirl Yudkowsky or anything, but I wish that fanfic wasn’t what everyone knew about him. Most of his work is reasonably palatable.
Doesn’t Hold Their iPad Against Their Chest Every Single Time I Walk By Even Though I Am Never Tempted to Look Anyway, Like Seriously What Is That Even About
oh god, I need Understands That I Have A Thing About Anyone Looking Over My Shoulder At Whatever I’m Doing On This Computer Even Though 90% Of It Is, Like, Twitter And They Follow Me
We’ve been figuring out how to arrange the furniture when we move, and Mr Daki suggested instead of keeping his desk in the bedroom, we just have it in the study with MY desk. And then Kid said he’d like his piano in there, too.
And I said it would feel too crowded to me in that case, so Mr Daki said maybe my desk could go in the living room where I wanted to put Kid’s piano. Where my back would be to the front door, the sofa/chairs, the dining room – basically the entire universe.
They don’t get that I have to have my desk not only the only major piece of furniture in the study, but also it has to sit in the one spot (also the only spot where the piano fits) that would allow me to see their comings and goings, and virtually no path through the house would result in one of them coming up behind me while I type. Never mind that I do all my work in the hours when the house is empty or full only of sleeping bodies.
Negotiations continue.
With your BACK TO THE DOOR? NO.
I would never be able to either relax or concentrate sitting at the desk in such a configuration. Best of luck on the continued negotiations.
Mentioning the name Wild Bill Hickok might be useful in your negotiations.
The only absolute requirement I have for furniture arrangement is that I get one (1) chair which is a) clearly Mine & free for my use at all times and b) back against a wall (or even better, in the corner) so I never have to worry about hypothetical shoulder looker-overs
“Won’t Send You Links That You Both Know Will Just Upset You” is actually VERY IMPORTANT TO ME. I have a friend who has been talking about forcing me to watch the third episode of season 2 of Kimmy Schmidt and just…. no.
Eagerly Sends You Links That Will Upset You In A Spooky/Unsettling Way But Won’t Send You Links That Will Upset You In A Kimmy Schmidt S2E3 Way
PERFECT.
That is cruel and you should probably reconsider that friendship.
My mom’s is Words of Affirmation but my dad’s is Is Summoned When You Turn The Bracelet Thrice and they’re still together, so I can only assume they’re particularly motivated to make it work.
well now my coworkers want to know what I’m laughing at…
“Not Pretending They Don’t Know The Blinking Light On The Dishwasher Means The Dishwasher Is Clean And You Should Empty It”
My credulity has been stretched too far with this one.
The companions to this act of love are
–not putting the carton back in the refrigerator with one ounce of milk left inside.
–not leaving one square of toilet paper on the roll.
–not wearing my socks because you pretend you can’t tell them from yours.
–putting away the leftovers instead of leaving them out and saying, “You do it so much better than me.”
“you do it so much better than me”
Aww, thanks for your praise of my skills in an area that takes almost no skills <3
“you do it so much better than me”
Um, what? Putting food into plastic or glass containers and then putting into fridge/freezer is not exactly a someone can do it better type of thing, wtf.
I have perfected the “we know I’m the smart one around here, but even the dog knows when the dishwasher is clean” look. Though it took me years.
I just *wish* we had a dishwasher… I ‘m over here hand washing everything.
I hate loading and unloading a prerinsing so much that I’d rather not even have a dishwasher.
It’s preceded by “agreeing that a dishwasher is a marriage-saving appliance and we are never again living anywhere that doesn’t have one.”
My love language is definitely Willing To Text Even When Nothing Is Going On Because What The Hell Else Am I Doing
Bless, I have a few friends who speak this love language with me.
As a character from a Guy Maddin movie, I thought Give You Their Gender-Disguised Twin was one of the main five? What’s this “Words of Affirmation” stuff?
My love language is some combination of
1. Ensorcelled Book Bound About With The Leather Of A White Stag That Opens Only To A Gentle Hand
2. A Birch Tree That Sings You To Sleep
3. Letting You Have The Last Of The Cheese When You’ve Had A Hard Day
I’m pretty sure mine is just, “Cheese.”
Let’s You Cry Like A Big Baby Over Something Probably Really Stupid And Tells No One.
Which is closely related to Listens to You Bitch About That Really Stupid and Probably Insignificant Thing That’s Driving You Crazy at Work And Tells No One
I used to communicate with Silent Agony, but then I got an electric guitar.
“I AM EXPRESSING MY AGONY!”
“I’m pretty sure you’re just playing A minor pentatonic scales over and over.”
“A MINOR IS THE KEY OF AGONY!”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Would they prefer B Locrian? Really now.
The love language I probably speak best is this: Words of Love and Affirmation Come Easily and are Therefore Fairly Cheap, the Real Love is in the Hundred Quiet Things Like Bringing You the Little Snack You Didn’t Know You Needed, or Doing the Dishes When It’s Actually Your Turn, or Making the Kid’s Lunch the Night Before So You Don’t Have To, or Remembers Your Godmother’s Birthday.
My wife’s love language is surely Always Has a Plan and Doesn’t Need Me to Always Be the Planner.
I’m just glad I am loving in the time of internet because I am v. bad at Words of Affirmation but A+ at emojis and gifs of affirmation.
Pymster’s* love language is totally Willing To Pretend Not To Be Annoyed Ever with a massive sidehelping of Lets Me Read Him Way Too Many Things From the Internet, Including Comments, At Least 10 Minutes More Than He Would Like Before Getting Restive.
Mine is Not Getting Too Mad that I Do All The Dishes.
*i am trying to work out a nom d’ude so bear with me
Er, that got recursive. I read your comment (among others) to Mr Pebble and he chuckled knowingly.
Won’t tease your mercilessly for the musicals he suspects you watched before you met
…oh! This ISN’T the track list for the newest Decemberists album!
Love it ne’er the less!
I just want you all to know I received this book from husband’s friend as a wedding gift.
I don’t think we ever talked to that guy again.
Shapeshifting: Stop trying to get me to like you, it makes me like you less
Silent & Unexpressed Agony + Will Destroy Your Enemies + Relentless Positive Affirmation + Snacks is my love language group.
“Loving And Accepting You For The Magicked Bird You Now Are Instead Of Trying To Change Me, Karina”
Oh! There’s a really sweet version of this in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court: Chapter 13 – A week For Kat
Last page: http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=255
Imagine your OTP.
My love kindly performs this both for musicals and period pieces, which he has collectively termed “Mrs. Featherbottoms”
Will Leave The Room When You’re Watching A Musical Because You Both Know If They Stay They’re Just Going To Make Fun Of It
Will Not Spoil the Moment By Saying “Oooh, I Always Hope It Will Be Matt Damon Who Emerges From the Frozen Goo!” During That One Scene in Interstellar
I read “Nettle-Flax” as Netflix, which made the whole magical shirt thing a tad more magical.
“Loving And Accepting You For The Magicked Bird You Now Are Instead Of Trying To Change Me, Karina”
And nobody posted anything about Rachel and Tobias in these comments yesterday? I’m so disappointed.
Not stopping you while you’re mowing the lawn to ask non-emergency questions.
That is 100% a great snack.