Have you taken the 5 Love Languages quiz?

No e-mail needed.
10 Quality Time
7 Words of Affirmation
6 Physical Touch
5 Receiving Gifts
2 Acts of Service

I’m not surprised. Time spent is very important to me. Now that I think about it, this fits in well with my annoyance when plans get cancelled.

@longgone Good point. I get really annoyed when my husband chooses to do work around the house over an opportunity for us to do something together. We are together a lot though, we do almost everything together except when he is at work, so it doesn’t really cause any major rifts.

7 Words of Affirmation
10 Quality Time
0 Receiving Gifts
6 Acts of Service
7 Physical Touch

It’s a strangely balanced quiz, but I would agree that quality time is the most important to me (and also probably the only category in which I get what I seem to need in my relationship).

9 Words of Affirmation
8 Quality Time
2 Receiving Gifts
5 Acts of Service
6 Physical Touch

Sounds true to me :)

I’ll do it later, not from work. I don’t have a significant other right now so there will be none of comparing to someone else. I also want to re-take the Myers Briggs too. Last time I took it (in fact, the only time) was about 20 years ago.

Taking these quizes always strikes me as odd because the conclusion is always foreordained, isn’t it?.

11 Acts of Service
6 Words of Affirmation
6 Quality Time
6 Physical Touch
1 Receiving Gifts

Honestly there were very few of these things my partner does not do. This just help confirm to me how lucky I am.

As Allen Bennett said when asked if he preferred men to women as lovers, it’s like asking a man dying of thirst in the desert if he prefers Evian or Perrier.

Whomever made that test sure was into receiving gifts! Plus they kept asking the same questions over and over.

9 Words of Affirmation
10 Quality Time
2 Receiving Gifts
6 Acts of Service
3 Physical Touch

The man who authored the book and made up the quiz was a counselor and what he found in marriages is what people want is to feel loved. That was a chief complaint I guess. He began to see patterns in relationships and these were the five things he often heard. He said if a person in a relationship makes a statement like, “we don’t spend enough time together,” or when a spouse returns from travel and the other spouse says, “you didn’t bring me anything?” If those sort of statements come up over and over again it is a clue what the complaining spouse needs to feel loved and happy. It makes sense.

@Dutchess_III The questions were not exactly the same over and over, it compared different things. Like one time it was gifts compared to acts of service, another time gifts against quality time, etc. etc. It feels like the same thing over and over because it’s the same 5 things.

My number 1 has always been Words of Affirmation. My hubby is quality time. That’s why I have to stop fluthering when he’s in the room. I didn’t re take the quiz because we did it a few years ago.

@gailcalled My results just said Darth Vader to everything.

Mine said Johnny Depp to everything.

I tried to do it but said fuck it about half way through. Every question was essentially “I wish my wife would….. be more X ,do Y more often, or buy me more shit.” It felt like half the questions I disagreed with both options yet was forced to pick one.

What happens if I’m already incredibly happy with my relationship?

This seems much too obvious to require a book to parse.

The author said, ” when a person in a relationship makes a statement like, ‘We don’t spend enough time together,” or when a spouse returns from travel and the other spouse says, ‘You didn’t bring me anything?’ ...(If those sort of statements come up over and over again) it is a clue what the complaining spouse needs to feel loved and happy.

A clue?

@gailcalled I think it isn’t obvious to a lot of people. A lot of people have no clue that loading the dishwasher will make their wife love them and desire them more, if that is what the wife equates with love. My husband in the beginning of our relationship thought flowers and gifts would make me feel loved, but I did not appreciate them much at all, I usualy see those things as a waste and it even might piss me off he is wasting money on things like flowers.

I think there are a lot of people who feel unhappy in their marriage, or are getting divorced, and at least one of the people in the relationship are a little mystified about what happened. What went wrong? They feel like they do plenty of the right things and still their spouse tells them they don’t do enough. It isn’t necessarily they need to do more, they just need to do the one or two things that matter most to their spouse.

I also think those little quizzes are fun. I guess you don’t.

Or a person could just be so insecure that no amount of presents or praise will make them feel loved.

I like those little quizzes to.

Touch
Quality Time
Words of Affirmation
Acts of Service
Gifts…

not too surprised on this one.

11 Quality Time
8 Physical Touch
6 Words of Affirmation
4 Acts of Service
1 Receiving Gifts

No surprises here.

To me, this is example is my husband showing me appreciation and affection. I’ve been using those Crest White Strips for about a week. Rick didn’t know I was doing it. Yesterday I asked him if my teeth looked whiter. He said they did and made me look 21 again (it’s an inside joke.) I called him a big fat liar! But he promised my teeth really did look whiter (I think they do too.)
Today he was in the kitchen, making a sandwich. I moved up next to him and grinned real big to the side of his face. He turned around to see me and exclaimed, “Where are my sunglasses!?”
Then later, he was asking what I wanted at the store and every time I mentioned an item I did it with a huge grin. It was kind of hard to talk that way, but I tried. He squinted his eyes every time! ♥

@Dutchess_III Cute. My husband does stuff like that.

I’m not sure if I would call it quality time or quantity time, because honestly I think quantity does matter, and all that talk years ago about quality time I think was to make working arenas feels better or something. Maybe that would be a good Q, what’s more imoritant quality or quantity time? But, back to the question at hand, and an example, I love when my husband is watching a TV show and I am not with him, and he calls for me, “JL, JL, you’re missing it, you have to come see.” it’s usually something funny, sometimes something interesting, but he wants me to be there with him watching it together. Or, when he decided to take golf lessons he wanted me to do it with him. Basically he almost always wants me to do stuff with him.

@JLeslie “working arenas”?

Working parents. That’s the second time parents has been turned into arenas on me. I need to shut off the autocorrect thingy.

1. Quality time – 11
2. Receiving gifts – 7
3. Touch – 6
4. Affirmation/Service (tie) – 3 each

@jca I think you are our first jelly on the Q to rank gifts pretty high. I’m wondering if you received gifts as a young girl a lot, or maybe you saw your dad give gifts to your mom often?

A lot of people aren’t honest about the gifts question because they don’t want to look selfish.

@Judi I don’t think of it as selfish at all. That’s an interesting consideration regarding how people answer. I never would have thought of that.

@Judi: Good point. @JLeslie: I think I am cynical due to being somewhat insecure, so words can be insincere, in my opinion.

@jca So that would be why the affirmations don’t mean much to you, and I guess you are saying gifts are an action that show effort, so you think that effort demonstrates they really do care? Or, am I interpreting that incorrectly?

@JLeslie: Not just gifts, but actions, too (the quiz mentioned chores, help, service).

I just took the Myers Briggs again, and got the same thing I got over 20 years ago: IFSP.

@jca I thought you were talking about the gifts, but you meant any action. Got it.

Did you take the Myers Briggs online? I took it once many years ago and I don’t remember at all what the result was, but I do remember my husband saying he was not surprised at my result.

@jca I’m curious, have you been married? I just wonder because when my husband gives me a gift it comes out of our pot of money. So, financially speaking when he gives me a gift I am also sort of paying for it. I’ve never been a big gift person anyway, even before I was married.

@JLeslie: When I took it over 20 years ago, it was in person, in a group. In a local library, a career help kind of little class. Tonight I took it online. For me, introvert would surprise a lot of people because I am definitely not shy, I advocate well for myself and at work, have had jobs where I have to be on my toes as far as confronting people. However, when I took it last time, it was described to us as “where you get your energy from. Do you get your energy from yourself or others? How do you recharge your batteries?” I like to be alone (maybe the result of being an only child), I prefer small, intimate groups of friends or one friend. If I go traveling with someone, I “recharge my batteries” by being alone by myself for a while each day, either by reading, or sitting on the patio, or being alone in a room. If I have no choice and no alone time, I will just sit and read in their presence, I am just by myself mentally.

Never married, not in a relationship presently (so it took a little remembering to do the 5 Languages quiz). I also thought of a good girlfriend who gives me homemade gifts, and how much I appreciate them over store bought gifts.

@jca I wasn’t assuming big expensive store bought gifts necessarily. I think that is why selfish also had not occured to me regarding gifts. I don’t have a negative association with people wanting gifts, I just usually see it as being more of a romantic, and I tend to be practical. As I get older I appreciate gifts more. My family are not gift givers, so gifts used to make me very uncomfortable. I’m better at it now.

@JLeslie: I guess the homemade gifts are sentimental, to me. My friend who gives them to me says she likes that I appreciate them, whereas others in her family that she gives them to don’t seem to. I am not into “shower me with gifts, jewelry, handbags, crap” but more like “give me a little homemade trinket that I can look at and think of my best friend” and it speaks to my sentimentality. I appreciate help, too. Practical and much appreciated.

@jca I’m the same way, great in social situations, very lively and talkative but I’d still much rather spend time alone.

@JLeslie “My family are not gift givers, so gifts used to make me very uncomfortable.”
My family are gift givers but I still feel really uncomfortable when receiving most gifts.

@El_Cadejo Most of my discomfort was having to fake it if I did not really like the gift, which possibly is different than why you are uncomfortable. As I get older I appreciate the sentiment, or feel sentimental about the gift myself, so what the gift actually is matters less. Plus, luckily, even though I married into a family that does Christmas they don’t do a ton of gifts and they rarely bother with birthday gifts, so I don’t have to worry about it much. My friends know I don’t want to get the whole gift giving thing going where we all feel like we have to buy each other gifts. We sometimes still randomly do give gifts, but nothing ever feels like an obligation.

@jca I bake for people sometimes as a small gift and some of my friends do the same, and I like that. When I was unable to do anything from my accident neighbors and friends cooked meals for us, I was really appreciative.

@JLeslie I think you hit on a couple key points as to why I feel uncomfortable about it. If you made me something I will always cherish it, but generally things that are bought for me I kinda feel like you shouldn’t have wasted you money on me, I also feel kinda obligated to do something in return for them. I hate that feeling. I don’t have much issue when it’s gifts from my fiance or family members but when it’s people I’m not that close with I just feel uncomfortable with it.

Tried it. None of the answers were mutually exclusive. Got frustrated. Quit.

For me, some answers were variable depending on whether we were talking about a boyfriend of a best friend (i.e. gifts). Also, which best friend? The one who gets store bought gifts that I need like a hole in the head or the one who makes me stuff? I went with the one who makes me stuff, but if I had a different person in mind, the answers would have been different.

This is what they sent me for my #1 answer, Quality Time:

In Quality Time, nothing says “I love you” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes you feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed activities, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful. Whether itʼs spending uninterrupted time talking with someone else or doing activities
together, you deepen your connection with others through sharing time.

@jca It was specifically about marriage. I would include any SO relationship. The quiz is not for regular friendships.

10 Physical Touch
8 Words of Affirmation
7 Quality Time
4 Acts of Service
1 Receiving Gifts

I know the 1 “receiving gift” that I chose was because I really disliked the other option in particular, my husband is a wonderful gift giver, but it’s not a priority to me at all. I would have expected more points for quality time and less for words of affirmation, but I suppose it makes sense if you knew my husband. He’s not a man of many words, that’s for sure. I actually feel like this gave me a bit of insight.

@JLeslie “The quiz is not for regular friendships.”

Huh? It specifically said to include all kinds of love – family, friends, partners. Does it only say that if you take the “singles” one?

@longgone: Right, that’s what I thought. It specified those kinds of relationships, not just lovers.

My mistake. I didn’t read it. I was going by what I saw when I watched the interview on TV. They were talking about marriages and his years as a marriage counselor. I’m glad you corrected me. Thanks.

My answers would differ slightly for friendships vs. SO relationships.