Simon O. Keene

Professor Toohey

ENG 170-09

Research Essay Final

07 May 2023

Love Language’s

We often see monsters as something that instills fear in us physically, but what if something that isn’t physical puts fear in us? The world of love is a menacing place, it can come to us in many forms but as quickly as it comes it goes, the question is what do you do when you’ve lost your form of love? Love languages are the way that a person prefers to express love to-and receive it from-a partner. There are different types of love languages that range from words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. The theory that how we love and how we’d like to be loved “was proposed by Gary Chapman in 1992 when he found that couples were not feeling loved despite their partners believing they were doing all the right things for them” (Guy Evans). With the presence of love languages comes the absence of them as well, too much of something is just as bad as too little of something, and when you have something that you deeply love get taken away it can change you. Seeing as how people can love differently and receive love differently in a positive way the same is true for a negative way. Love is an emotion that causes one to act not based off well thought out decision but based off pure impulse and because of that the consequences can be monstrous.

Words of affirmations is a verbal love language, it’s “someone’s desires to be loved simply by words” (Albaner Eugene). Verbally expressing and receiving love has its ups and downs. Being loved and showing love through validating someone else can be looked upon for the most part as positive. Although everyone has a certain point that they must reach to truly feel like they are loved. When that point isn’t reached it can change the whole course of someone’s day, week, month, etc. The monstrous aspect of words of affirmation is that it can be used in a sinical and villainous way. For example, a couple gets into an argument and the man is wrong, him knowing his girlfriend’s love language is affirmations he will begin to “gas light” her by using affirmations and telling her everything that she wants to hear so that she will not be mad about the situation anymore. Another way that affirmations can be monstrous is through manipulation. Just like gas lighting affirmations can be used to manipulate someone to do whatever another person wants, because that validation they get is the best feeling in the world some people will do absolutely anything to get it. Mentally a lot of things come with affirmations, for some it’s their intrusive dream to just have someone come to them and just pour their heart out about how much they love, miss, appreciate, and value them just as person. Going from never experiencing that to always experiencing it is a big shift, especially in a romantic relationship. In a romantic relationship a partner who has never received or just isn’t used to that kind of  behavior will begin to crave it and feel as though they cannot live without it. That can lead the person to act very irrational and even psychotic to get whatever they don’t have access to anymore. An example can be a junkie on the street, without that high that they get from whatever drug they use they feel like their nothing, they are not happy so they will go to an extent to be able to get the money to fuel their addiction, doesn’t matter if it’s shaking a cup outside of a McDonald’s for hours or stealing from people they will do what they need to in order to get that next high.

            Quality time and physical touch I believe are two languages that tie into one another. On their own they both equally have their negatives but together I believe they truly can be monstrous. Quality time is when “you feel the most loved and feel the most connected when your spending quality time with your partner but the key there is really the quality” (Quality Time) and physical touch is “love expressed through physical contact” (Touch). Personally I feel that these also tie into my own love language, there is nothing I rather more than hanging out with people or someone who I just love and enjoy being around, they are times where just being with people no matter what we do can be so fulfilling and enlightening, it can honestly change everything about what is going wrong in you that day, week, month, etc. To add sometimes we all just need that quality time with people we genuinely love not only for ourselves but also for them because you never know if that person feels exactly how you do about them with you. This warm and cozy feeling is all good and all but eventually when you do get used to the feeling, feelings change, and they can turn monstrous. Having the luxury of always seeing that person/people who you love spending quality time with and physically touching can cloud your own judgement, because when that person isn’t available, when they are going through their own thing, and when they don’t want to speak or see anyone that means your access is cut off and feelings change. You change, you become greedy and selfish to the point where now your feelings that were once so pure and joyful have now become monstrous and disrespectful to the people whom you love most because you cannot receive what your so used to receiving all the time. Not having an attitude of gratitude and taking what you have for granted can be the cause of you losing everything you do have with a person or people. This is common in romantic relationships, one side received so much quality time and physical touch for a lifetime in the beginning of the relationship, the a few months to year down the line that same pressure to see your person has dwindled down significantly and now the issue in the relationship is “why do I never see you” or “when was last time we were really intimate like that.” Lisa Firestone said it best here, “When there is a secure attachment pattern, a person is confident and self-possessed and can easily interact with others… However, when there is an anxious or avoidant attachment pattern and a person picks a partner who fits with that maladaptive pattern, they will most likely be choosing someone who isn’t the ideal choice to make them happy.” This elaborates my earlier example about relationships seeing as how the inability to get that love that someone craves so much can cause them to be willing to get up and walk, they become selfish and entitled to what they were so used to and when they lose it, they run away and try to find it elsewhere.

            Acts of service is the love language of doing things that make life more enjoyable or easier for another person. I believe this ties in with receiving gifts since receiving a gift can be an act of service whether the gift be physically or not it still can make life more enjoyable for a person. In addition acts of service ties into quality time as mentioned before “the key is real quality” so what you do with your quality time can either be acts of service or gift giving. Acts of service and gift giving can be all and well but eventually they turn from a “positive act that comes from a place of love to acts that should be regular in life” (Campbell) which shouldn’t be the case. For example once you start giving someone a birthday gift every year, they might expect to see something from you every year just because you did it that one time and if you don’t do it, they might assume that something has changed on your end towards them, or they did something to hurt you without knowing. The feeling of being entitled to something comes into play again because now that you’ve experienced something once or twice out of kindness you feel you deserve that and if you don’t get that then it is a problem for the other person doing the giving to fix when really, it’s something in you that needs to be fixed. In a way its narcissistic to believe that you deserve that kind of treatment regularly no matter if it is your love language or not. Grace Stuart explains in her book Narcissus the narcissistic side that ties into the monstrous side of love languages when she says,  “ A great, despairing cry for love might go up, not only from isolated, individual hearts, but also from the heart-sickness of narcissistic culture” (Pg86). Now with that comes curiosity, to what level does one need to be loved before the love turns someone into a monster? Would it be after someone was given everything from another person exactly how they wanted it and then in an instant it was stripped away from them, or could it be when that person lost everything, they were given they felt like they didn’t deserve to lose anything because of who they are?

Many would agree that monsters come in various shapes and sizes, but what if a monster wasn’t physical? If things that aren’t physical and aren’t touchable can be monsters, can someone’s love be a monster or is it what you do when you lose that love that is monstrous? Love comes in different variations for example you have words of affirmations which is someone’s desire to be loved by words. You also have quality time, spending time with someone is the love you enjoy, then you have physical touch which is intimacy and being able to get in tune with one another on a physical plane is and that’s how you love and would like to be loved. Other forms of love are acts of service, doing the little things to make someone else’s life easier and gifts which are self-explanatory. Each of these ways to love and be loved come with a negative side or a monstrous side. Words of affirmation can be twisted and used to manipulate or gas light one into thinking something else. They can change someone who felt unheard and uncomfortable because of a valid situation to someone who is alright with not being heard and being uncomfortable, if they get their positive comments they don’t care. Quality time and physical touch can lead to spoiling someone rotten, having them think they deserve every ounce of quality and intimacy that was given from kindness not obligation. Acts of service and gifts can have someone’s head inflated like a balloon causing them to think so highly of themselves that they forget there is no obligation to do or give the little things and that it is a choice not a duty. With all heard is it okay to fear love, to think that love as good as it sounds can also be something that could strike fear into someone if they don’t tread lightly? How do you love and whichever way it may be does it scare you to know how monstrous it can truly get?

 

                                                                   Works Cited

  • Zweig, Paul. The Heresy of Self-Love : a Study of Subversive Individualism / Paul Zweig. Basic Books, 1968.

  • Stuart, Grace Croll. Narcissus; a Psychological Study of Self-Love. Allen & Unwin, 1956.

  • Campbell, Richmond. Self-Love and Self-Respect : a Philosophical Study of Egoism / by Richmond Campbell. Published for the Canadian Association for Pub. in Philosophy by the Department of Philosophy of Carleton University, 1979.