Love Languages – What the Actual F%£K!?

Why keeping things simple and the old-fashioned way is perfectly fine.

After I watched the last series of Love Island All Stars (yes, I know, don’t judge), I noticed something different was happening that I had never seen before. No, not that most of the contestants have changed since they last appeared on the show and their teeth are now a new shade of pristine white, but something else.

A new question was being asked.

Last year’s runner-up was – so, what’s your type on paper? I know, mind blown.

This year’s winner was – so, what are your love languages?

What the actual...?

Firstly, what the bloody hell is love language? Since when has this been a thing? And, since when has become in the top two questions you ask when you are chatting someone up, ahead of, ‘Do you own your own teeth?’

Back in the day, when I was dating, if a man had asked me what my love languages were, I would probably have hazarded a guess at – ‘GCSE German, I got a C!’, quite proudly to be fair.

I wouldn’t in a million years think it was what turned me on, and I like to do in bed!

Haven’t we missed a whole section on getting to know each other? What’s your favourite colour? Do you have any pets? What is your mother’s maiden name? No, I am not cloning you for identity fraud, just curious.

And even if I did get asked that question on a date back in the day, I most probably would have replied with something like, ‘Erm a good film and a chicken Kiev please!’

It wouldn’t have entered my head to reel off things like words of affirmation and I do love a good hug.

Yet there are apparently five different types of love languages, and we have –

1.      Physical touch

2.      Quality time

3.      Receiving gifts

4.      Acts of service

5.      Words of affirmation

Acts of service? Service? OK, so me going out of my way to tell my husband he has scrubbed up well is an act of service. *Sophie leaves to scream into a pillow*

Honestly, this must be a different generation thing because if I sat down with my husband and started whispering sweet words of affirmation in his ear, he would think I had lost the plot. Don’t get me wrong I would love a gift now and then, who wouldn’t? And you can’t beat a good hug sometimes, but I certainly wouldn’t start listing all my love languages on my CV for the world to see.

When I was dating the first thing my friends would ask me was, ‘What were his shoes like?’, as soon as it had finished, and they wanted the low down.

My reply was always the same – ‘I never looked’ – to their dismay! They couldn’t believe that I just never got the whole fascination with checking the shoes and why they were so important to the date. Yes, shoes make a good impression but obviously, they were lost on me – a bit like love languages.

Listing your love languages on a date might be your thing, I suppose finding that stuff out early on is important but back in the day we all did pretty well finding out that stuff without a whole bullet-point (laminate) list.

Some things don’t need changing. We don’t need to know everything about a person on a first date, which is the best part of meeting someone, finding out everything there is to know about that person, and talking for hours until you eventually feel like you’ve known each other for years.

Let’s keep that air of mystery. Let’s keep the excitement of the unknown. Let’s keep finding out if we match the old-fashioned way – all in good time.