Hi everybody! I hosted the Carnival of Aces in April 2019. This is part 1 of 3 of my submission.
So after I posted the Call for Submissions for this carnival theme on The Five Love Languages, the thought crossed my mind that if I’m hosting a whole Carnival of Aces on the topic I should probably dive deeper into the source of the ideas. And then I got kinda carried away.
I decided to write three posts on the topic of The Five Love Languages. I had a lot to say.
The first post, below, doesn’t have to do with asexuality—but this post was inspired by me having chosen the topic for the Carnival of Aces, and it provides good context for my thoughts that will be touched upon in parts 2 and 3. Parts 2 and 3 will be much more relevant to asexuality (& aromanticism). However, of course in all 3 parts I am writing from my own perspective which is always influenced by me being ace but in terms of drawing direct connections that will be few and far between.
Holding tightly to my worldviews that I knew would clash with a super heteronormative/amatonormative and Christian book, knowing not to take things too seriously like Myers-Briggs personality types that still can be fun as a tool or game but aren’t scientifically sound, keeping my own ideology in mind and feeling braced for almost anything and unsure what I’d find, I listened to the audiobook version of the original The Five Love Languages book for married couples.
After that, I still craved exposure to some of the other books I knew existed for a more fleshed out perspective and found myself having listened to not just one but actually three audiobooks. Yeah I definitely got extremely carried away.
But I have takeaways, if you bear with me!
Secondly, I read (listened to) most of the book the same guy, Gary Chapman, published in partnership with Child Psychologist Ross Campbell about these love languages as applied to Children although I didn’t get through the whole thing although I got fairly close to the end before switching again, and at that point I listened to the entire audiobook of the book he wrote for “Singles” (Basically it’s a catchall book for all relationships you might have that aren’t with a spouse. It covers a little of nearly everything including dating and friendship, roommates, and varied family dynamics (siblings, parents toward children, adult children toward parents), and co-workers. It even repeats stuff from the children book.)
All this gave me a lot of thoughts, some of which were very critical and frustrated, and some much more introspective, philosophical, and intrigued. I have a deeper understanding of what is meant by each of the five categories. I have a deeper understanding too of what the phrase “love language” is supposed to capture.
I will explain some of the MAJOR ISSUES in the books in part 2 of my Blog Post series here, but let’s start on a more positive note.