S14E8: The 7 Love Styles w/ Molly Owens

00:00:01 - 00:05:03

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves.  I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

Hey Friends, welcome to another episode of the dateable podcast, we are your dating sherpas. We are here to help facilitate this entire dating experience for you to make it better to make it more enjoyable to make it more pleasant. Right? That's not cool. That is our goal in this week. We don't have just 5 love languages to talk about, but we have 7. Yeah, I was going to ask you, can you name all of the 5 love languages off the top of your head? Words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch of gifts, and then acts of service. Nice. Nice. And now there are 5. Now there are 7. Now there's 7 and we have the pleasure of speaking with Molly Owens, who's the founder and CEO of I've used the site true for all these types of quizzes they have. Any of them, they have the 16 personality types and how they have the love style. So, you know, she brings up a lot of points that will go into the episode, but the original love languages were created odds ago. And it's like, why aren't we updating this? I've always thought about how we kind of box ourselves in to these assessments that were created by white men 80 years ago. Why are we doing this? We should be creating our own assessments. I agree. I feel like attachment theory, which we talked about two episodes ago, same thing. Why are we boxing ourselves in? I think all of these are really good, though, is it gives us a sense of who we are, how we operate in relationships. But I think we can't be like, this is defining of me, you know? Yeah. Something to think about going into this episode for everyone listening is when you first took the love languages test. Did you think it was your love languages in giving or receiving? 'cause I think this conversation we go into your love languages in both of those, giving and receiving, and they may not be the same thing, which is fascinating. Yes, yes. I remember talking to my partner about love languages and Alec wanted early date, and he was just like, I see this on everyone's profile. So I looked it up. I feel like attachment theory, love language, which is all that actually being filled up with attached with their other programs. I'm anxious attachment style. Looking for a surprise, but I feel like people definitely do buyers breaks other profile. Yeah, definitely love languages shows up a lot. Yeah, and what's the other one, astrology? That one, people put a lot. But I'm glad that people are taking these quizzes to get a sense of where they are today. And in this episode, I do reveal that, I think my love language has changed throughout time throughout experiences, depending on which partner you're with. So Julie, as you're coming up on your one year anniversary, so how have things changed? You know, I still can't believe it's been one year. And yeah, we're doing our trip to carval so by the time this is aired, we've already gone. So we'll do any updates next week if there are any better exciting. And I think though it's, I like the year. I mean, obviously it's a milestone, but also it's a good point of reflection of just where I was a year ago versus where I am now where our relationship was a year ago. My partner was a year ago where he is now. There's so much growth, I think that it's important to do the self work when you're not in a relationship on your own, but it doesn't stop once you are and I think new stuff comes up when you're in a relationship or there's someone there to hold you accountable and to maybe challenge the way you think about things and also challenge in a good way to be kinder to yourself. So in the last year of being together, what is something that your partner has challenged you on? Well, okay, so I can think of many. It's hard to say just one. I'm going to start with maybe a challenge that I had on my own and then I'll do something that he's challenged me on. I think a big piece of going into the relationship. And I don't think this was a bad thing. I was in a place that I honestly could kind of take or leave a relationship. I built a life. I felt good about my life. I was happy with my life. And I actually think that's really important to get into a relationship. But I was much more closed off to really letting someone in my life, and I think it's because I just hadn't had an experience. I've had past relationships, but they were never as integrated as this is.

00:05:04 - 00:10:04

Today. And I feel like there was a lot of pain that came from them. And it really made me question, is this whole thing worth it? And my current partner has just been consistent from day one. He's been there for me since day one. He's shown up for since day one. And that hasn't changed a year in. And I think that to me, it just shows that we are wired for huba connection. Love actually is so important for happy this. It's okay to build a life where you're confident on your own, but also still want love. And I think maybe I like swung the other way too much that I wasn't as in touch with that need and maybe some of it is that I hadn't seen it in a way that showed up now. But that's hard when you're single and dating, you want to be this independent woman. You want to be strong and you are enjoying life as much as you possibly can. It is hard to integrate someone when you are at that phase in your life. Also when society is like, you don't need no man. You can do it on your own. You know, it's like that. It's a lot of contradictory thoughts out there, and you just have to find what works for you. Yeah, and it's that, but it's also like if your past relationships were like tumultuous or there was a lot of back and forth or on again off again or you've been ghosted a lot, like all that stuff makes it really hard to like dive in head first a lot of the time. There's a lot of fear driving it at the end of the day. And I think I didn't realize, I mean, I didn't realize first of all, how much I needed it because I never had someone that could give me what I needed. And I didn't know how to ask what I needed to. So I think that's one thing. What my partner has taught me are challenged me on. That was kind of the piece. I would say working through when times aren't a 100%. I think the one, I mean, there's many areas of our relationship that are wonderful, but a big piece is just conflict resolution. And I think he has really challenged me to also take accountability on my own too. And see where maybe my own blind spots are. I think I've done a lot of work, but I also feel like there's areas that maybe when you do a lot of therapy and self work that you're like, I got this, I'm good. And I think there is areas that you know like I definitely am an achiever from our episode last week, the overachiever archetype is me to the bone and I think that I have, you know, measured by yourself in terms of accomplishments. So if there is something that I'm not doing a 100%, then I take it really personally and he's helped me realize there's ways that just because you can do something differently or better doesn't mean that you're not a good person and you're not doing it well to begin with. It's just other ways of doing things. That's part of compassion too. That's very it's a very necessary thing in a relationship because if your partner is also like you're not achieving you're not doing this right, then you would just go down that dark negative hole. Yeah, I think the main thing too he's helped me with or challenged me on is slowing down. Yeah. I think before him I was go go go high achiever mode and he definitely has been like, let's just enjoy a night chilling up watching TV, you know? And I think before I was like, oh, that's a waste of time. I need to just be doing doing doing. And while we do still do a lot, I think we do need that downtime. And sometimes that downtime can be where a lot of memories are created. When you're doing nothing, we used to call it the Sunday test, right? Or the couch test there's no external stuff going on to make this an amazing day or a basic time. It's just chilling. And that I think I've really embraced a lot more since being with him. And this kind of goes back to when we talk about like the first couple dates, how some people emphasize so much on the activity. Oh my gosh, we went to the museum, and then we did this thing, and it was so incredible, so unique. When you focus so much on activities in early dating, you don't know how to hang out and just be. So we always say like in the first couple of dates, one of those days should just be like hanging out, no agenda, just to see if you can coexist together. Right. It doesn't matter what you're doing. I remember actually one of our early dates, we did a picnic in the park. And he brought all these games and stuff for us to play, but we didn't actually use any of them because we were just enjoying each other's company and talking. And I think that is the true test of a long-standing connection is, do you need activities or can you just be with one another? Right, right. Love that. Before we get into it, some announcements. You can always follow us at dateable podcast on Instagram, social media.

00:10:04 - 00:15:03

We're doing this new segment brunch talk every Sunday and you can email us your questions, DM them. We're getting so many questions. We have a huge ass list of topics. Edward slowly going through that. But send in your question, we're also kind of looking to what are the common themes that we're getting, which will also prioritize which ones we do. So tune in on Sunday, make sure you subscribe so you get all these episodes first and share this with a friend because everyone can learn from this. Okay, let's hear it from Molly. A few years ago, everyone was talking about love languages there were 5, everyone's doing the assessments and then sharing languages. I've seen people share it on their dating profiles. And now you have new research to show us they're actually 7 love languages. I can barely keep track of the 5, but now there are 7, so we're very eager to get into what these 7 are, but who is Molly Owens, who is our guest today. She's CEO and founder of one of the leading providers of research backed personality tests, she has a master's degree in counseling psychology and worked as a therapist and an organizational performance consultant before founding Trinity in 2012. Since then trudy has helped more than 50 million people better discover their true selves at home at work and in relationships and she's a regular contributor to ink magazine and recently appeared on Bloomberg TV. Hi, Molly. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Thank you for being on our show a little bit more about Molly, she's in her 40s. She lives in Alameda, California originally from San Jose and she is married. Let's just get right into it, Molly. Can we just refresh everyone's memories here on the original 5 love languages? What are they? Absolutely. So the original 5 love languages were developed by a marriage counselor, a Christian marriage counselor, he was doing work with couples in the 80s. And he came up with 5 love languages that he observed in his work with couples that kind of define the way that people wanted to receive love from their partners acts of services one. That's kind of work around the house, words of affirmation, which is saying thank you and giving your partner compliments and appreciation verbally, physical touch, which is, you know, hugging and kissing as well as sex, receiving gifts. That doesn't have to be a big gift. It could just be a little token of appreciation, your partner go to the grocery store. They bring you your favorite snack, and then finally we have quality time, which actually they found was the biggest love language. The most popular love language for the most people. And that has to do with spending time together and also just focusing in on your partner. So if you're watching a movie together, really connecting with that movie and connecting with your partner instead of also being on your phone would be an example of that today. So quality time is not just the time but also the attention. So those are the original 5 and those are the ones that doctor Chapman lay down in his book. Do you know what motivated doctor Chapman to even do this? And this was done in the 80s and early 90s, which was quite some time ago before so much. So much has changed in modern dating since then. Yeah, I was really his perspective, I think, on how he worked with couples and he had a very sort of positive strength space attitude towards working with couples and I think his philosophy was that people were trying to connect, but they were just missing each other. And love languages was the way that he interpreted that. You know, that people were trying to show how much they cared, but those actions and behaviors just weren't landing with their partners because they were speaking different languages. And that brings me to my next question, which is how we receive love is different than how we show love. Do you think that the 5 love languages is really just about receiving and not so much about giving? Yeah, that's an interesting point because when we developed our assessment, we actually dove a little bit more into that issue. So originally with the love languages, it focused a lot on figuring out what you wanted to receive and how to show love to your partner based on their love language. But it didn't really go into what's your kind of go to love language for showing love to other people. And that may or may not be the same language that you want. For instance, my love language is appreciation. I love for people to kind of give me compliments, say thank you, really recognize me when I've achieved something. But when I'm trying to express love to somebody else, my go to is to make them their favorite meal, which is more of a kind of acts of service in the original love languages or what we call practical in our system. So that's a good maybe segue because I'd love to hear what everyone's love languages are. I retook the quiz today the original quiz. We also took your new quiz as well. Great. From the original quiz, I actually got words of affirmation was number one.

00:15:03 - 00:20:08

I think quality time was next for me, then acts of services and all of those words of affirmation was the most, but the rest had weights associated with them too. And then I got 0% for gifts, which was really interesting. What about physical touch? Oh, physical touch was in there too. Sorry, I had words of affirmation quality time, physical touch, acts of services, and then zero on gifts. Interesting. So originally, they found that when they researched the 5 love languages that redeeming gifts was actually the least popular one back then as well. And I think that it's become even less important as time has gone on, that kind of financial transactional aspect to relationships. We're planning to do a bit more research on that, but we'll see by age group how that shapes up. I took this quiz a few separate times with different partners. And I feel like my love language has changed based on what my partners are giving me. So in previous partnerships, it was always words of affirmation or quality time, that surface to the top. But now with my current partner, it is gifts, gives us to be my least interesting scored one. And now it is gifts because I don't know somehow I'm missing kind of like the surprise little things that my previous partners have done for me. Here's a little cupcake here and there or whatever. So do you think that the love language is something that constantly evolves with our needs in our current partnerships. So I do, I don't think your core needs change and I think the things that mean something to you are going to stay more or less the same over your lifetime and over different relationships, but like you said when you're missing something in a relationship when that drops out and it's not there for you anymore. It suddenly comes to top mind where you're thinking, hey, I used to sort of take this for granted and now I'm not getting it and now I really realized that it was super important to me. So if you take a quiz at one point in time, what might be coming out is what you're really missing and focusing on because we do tend to take for granted what our partners are doing for us consistently. UA so is that your number one for gifts or were the other ones still above that, but just gifts showed up higher. Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, still words of affirmation one. The gift second interesting, yeah. You know, I think it's some of it, 'cause I actually noticed for me acts of services was higher. And even when I'm taking the quiz, I think subconsciously, I'm thinking like, that's not that important to me. But when my partner does it, it actually is really important to me. And I kind of feel like it's either what's missing, but also it's almost like we get greedy. For instance, I feel like physical touch is not a problem in my relationship. So I almost feel like it went down in my needs because I'm like, oh, I'm already getting this. How do you not feel greedy by wanting all of them? You can have all of them if you want. You could want all of them. I mean, the great thing about the love languages is just a starting point for really understanding what you want. So we have these 7 broad categories, but within each category, there's specific actions that will really make you feel loved. So if we're talking about the practical love style, which is what very similar to the acts of service love language, that's all about pitching in with practical actions around the house or just in daily life. For you, that might be making a meal for you for somebody else it might be cleaning. It's not going to be cleaning for me because I don't even notice if the house is clean, so that's not going to make any difference to me whatsoever. But if you're a very food focused person, you know, maybe it's bringing you your favorite treat. It might be driving you to the store if you hate driving, you know, it's very, very specific. So it's not about, you know, I need everything in the universe. It's about let me use these sort of 7 broad categories to better kind of drill down into what's really important to me and what really makes a difference in how I feel. I want to go back to this idea of giving and receiving. And what I'm having a hard time trying to understand. And this is before we get into the 7 love languages, is how you choose to show love or give love. Is that self serving? I mean, I'm asking this because should we just listen to our partners, know what their love languages are and show them love in their love language? Or is there value in us liking, like you said, you like to cook someone a meal? That gives you satisfaction. Is there still value in that? Yeah, absolutely. You want to still feel comfortable expressing love in the way that resonates for you, because, you know, giving that to somebody else is a big part of your satisfaction in a relationship as well. But ideally, you want to focus most on what your partner needs. You don't want to be putting a lot of effort into actions that really aren't landing for them or don't mean a whole lot for them. And we all know that relationships are hard work. So if you're going to be putting in that hard work, you want to put it into those things that really make your partner feel like you're paying attention. So what about you, Molly? What are your love languages that you like to receive? The ones that you like to give and then your husband likes to receive.

00:20:08 - 00:25:01

Absolutely. So appreciation is my love style, which is very similar to the words of affirmation, love language, but it also has to do with kind of just recognizing your partners ambitions and their goals and kind of being there with them to congratulate them as they make those little victories in their life. So I'm huge on that. I'm an ambitious person and I want my partner to be there with me to say, hey, great job, you did that. I really admire that. I'm really there with you kind of celebrating. So that's me. My husband is from Ireland. And in Ireland, I don't think they have compliments. That's right. You know, positive feedback just in general. So when we first got together, I was sort of in that mode where you kind of give what you want, kind of noticing what he accomplished and saying, hey, you're great at that. And it felt absolutely flat. Like that went just nowhere with him, you know, I think Irish people actually perceive compliments as sort of embarrassing, like they're being called out. So when I took our test now, after having been with him for 12 years, giving appreciation was super low for me because I just, you know, I really don't. It seems to make him uncomfortable. I really don't do that very much anymore. So I've kind of adjusted my style. What is his number one? His number one is the sort of physical aspect that kind of cuddling and hugging and being physically close. And that is a big part of our relationship. I think that resonates for me too. It's not something that I really think about. I think maybe like you, I take it for granted, but I think that's where we have kind of a meeting of the minds in our relationship. That's fascinating. I feel like I can totally relate to that because I love giving partners surprises. Surprising them with events or things and if they don't react in a way that I think they should react, I become resentful or super disappointed and I do remember this one time. This was years ago. I surprised my boyfriend at the time to this Broadway play that I thought that he would love. When in fact, it was just a play that I wanted to see. I thought, well, we're going to go to Broadway and surprise him on his birthday and he had this reaction of like, why? You know? And I think I learned my lesson there. Just because I would like something like that. Doesn't mean that it's going to be as meaningful for my partner. Absolutely. And that's a great reason why you do want to kind of at least be aware of your partner's love styles and kind of adjust towards them so that you're not putting so much effort into something that really is not going to mean something to them. And you know, if you just want to go to the play that just fess up and say, I want to go to this play where you come with me and recognize that it's more about kind of what you want to do. Or what you want to include them in, which is fine too, but not expect them to react the way that you might. So outside of having your partner take the quiz, it's themselves. Is there any other ways you can learn more about their love languages? Well, once you know about these different ways of expressing love, you can be just a lot more kind of scientific and observant in the way that you kind of analyze what lands with them. So what seems to bring them closer, what kind of seems to bring up a positive emotional response, if you think back to times when they really seemed like they connected with you, what were those actions that brought that on? So if they're too stubborn to actually take the test, this can still give you a framework for understanding, oh, that really seemed to work for them. Maybe other things in that same category would work too. It is a too early, like when do you think it's too early to bring up love languages on early dating? Like if you're out with someone brand new. It's profiles okay or do you think it's too much? I think that's the best part with how popular this has become that people are putting it in their dating profile that it's just part of this kind of common language. It's really I think a great conversation starter and it's something that's significant and important in a relationship. I would want to caution people against using it as some sort of compatibility measure. You don't want to say, oh, your love language is acts of service. And that's not important to me. So forget it. Having a successful relationship is not about matching up on love languages. It's about kind of being willing and open to have that dialog with your partner. Julie, do you know, do you know your partner's love languages? I do. Mostly physical touches number one. You know what's interesting is that he actually saw it so prominently on dating profiles before we met that it inspired him to take the quiz. So it was just. Do you know your partners, a physical touch for sure? Do you think like all men are physical touch? 'cause it's gonna save me. You don't pay find really interesting. Is that like I always thought acts of services and gifts were my lowest too.

00:25:01 - 00:30:01

And I do think they still are. Gifts was always my lowest one. I scored zero in it. But I like to give gifts to my partner. I'm not sure if that's like the number one for him, but it does fuel something for me. And I think he obviously enjoys it. Who doesn't enjoy a gift? Why do you think my least one that I identify to receive is my top one that I may be give? Well, my theory is that for the ones that you give, it has more to do with kind of your programming and your family and what you observed, whereas the ones you like to receive, have more to do with your personality and your coordinates. So for me, it's easier to understand things that I can do practically around the house if I want to show that I'm kind of participating in my relationship. And I'm a terrible housekeeper anyway. So I feel like, no, I'm really putting in that effort to kind of I clean the bathroom. I really love you. This really means something. And that's what I saw kind of growing up was my family doing a lot of practical things for each other and really appreciating when we connected around those practical tasks. But that doesn't do a lot for me when my partner, it doesn't make me feel loved in particular. That is fascinating because gift giving for me was definitely love language growing up. That was how my family gave love. And I always desired words of affirmation. I felt like that was maybe lacking more. So it's interesting that I do what I know, but I desire what I didn't know. Yeah, yeah. That may be true that what you desire is sort of filling that hole that was missing in your childhood, what you're really kind of trying to grow into, whereas what you do is kind of what you feel comfortable with. Well, this leads us into this discussion about your new research, obviously the love language languages has been really prevalent for data, but it is also kind of antiquated. It was done so many years ago. So what inspired you to lead this new research and finding 7 love languages. It is very antiquated, and I started I started by really diving deep in the existing love languages when we saw how popular it was and how much of a kind of part of the conversation it was. We thought, okay, we need to start researching this and see what we might be able to contribute. It was a struggle for me really to go through the materials because they are so gendered. And so heteronormative. There's not a lot of explicit discussion of Christianity and religious attitudes, but it kind of underlies the whole philosophy. There's a presumption that you are going to be staying married. You're not evaluating whether you're going to be in this relationship or not. You're there. And you're playing your role based on your assigned gender and everything else is kind of layered on top of that. So it was difficult for me to kind of get into this system with all of those kind of preconceived notions attached to it. A lot of the areas that he had put emphasis on really weren't all that relevant for a couples today, especially younger couples. We don't have this sort of transactional relationship where we each have our role and we're kind of exchanging those goods and services and relationships have really grown so that it's more about a meeting at the mines, it's more about challenging each other. It's more about that spiritual connection. And I really felt like that was left out to a large degree from the original system. That's so fascinating. And it's interesting because I feel like attachment theory is kind of like that too. The research is so old, yet it's still so prominent in how we view relationships. It's really fascinating that we cling on to these approaches that really are not in line with the way modern dating and relationships are. Yeah, yeah, I mean, don't get me started on attachment theory, but I think one of the unfortunate things about the field of psychology is that we do, you know, we have a sort of charismatic person who has an idea that sounds good and it's not based on a ton of empirical data, but just, you know, we make it part of our consciousness. So what we wanted to do with the love languages was kind of investigate that. Get that data really look at it with a fresh eye and with more just sort of statistics that didn't have a particular bias one way or the other and really see how it shaped up. So how did you do that? For all the data nerds out there, how did you do that? Of course, you don't need to go into all the details, but I love a how did you do that? Oh, I love it too. So prepare to geek out. It was really fun. So we have about a million to 2 million people taking tests on our site, which gives us a lot of data when we want to do new survey research. So in this case, what we first did was we did an open ended survey question, which was just tell us about a time that somebody made you feel really loved. It really hit home for you. And we just looked at that text and it was a ton of text a bear to go through, but we looked at sort of the words that repeated it a lot. We looked at the phrases that came up a lot. And what we found was the top two themes were that somebody really listened to you and respected your point of view, took the time to understand your values, and then that somebody was really there for you.

00:30:01 - 00:35:02

When you were going through a hard time, they were kind of that sympathetic ear that shoulder to cry on, they stepped in and they were kind of with you, whatever you were going through. However difficult it was they were there with you. And those were both factors that really they were barely touched on in the original 5 love languages, but really kind of left by the wayside. So we knew we had something as soon as we started to see those key phrases come through. Let's hold that thought for a few messages. Have you ever thought about how much better dating would be if you had a whole army of people supporting you along the way? We know that dating can be frustrating and lonely, but it can also feel fulfilling and fun. Have you recently decided you want to make some changes to your love life? Maybe you've recently reentered the dating scene. Maybe you've gone on one too many dates that went nowhere, or maybe you're just ready to take your current relationship to the next level. That is exactly why we created the sounding board, a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience, which includes monthly office hours where you can drop in and chat with us about anything. Weekly sound offs with guided discussions and regular virtual happy hours, allow Julie and I to become your dating sherpas to provide real-time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can all navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sounding board today by going to dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Again, that's dateable podcasts dot com slash sounding board. Did you look at the data at all by gender or sexual orientation or race or any other byproduct that's maybe a little more nuanced than the original hetero normative view that was in the original research? A little bit. We've just started that. I'm really excited about launching this as kind of an official test now that we have kind of refined it, we're kind of putting it out there as this is a sort of validated assessment that you can take. And that's when we expect a lot of people to start taking it and then we can kind of survey people on what's your gender orientation, what's your sexual orientation, what's your age group, that all that sort of stuff so that we can slice and dice. We have looked a little bit at gender. I was wondering if love languages would differ a lot between men and identified men and women. So far we haven't found huge differences, so that's interesting in itself, but we'll definitely dig into that more when we have more data from the official assessment. Well, we both took the assessment or the current version of the assessment. And what I found really intriguing was the fact that the 7 love languages that you've come up with are categories of languages versus the original which are very much action based, acts of service, words of affirmation, things that you do, but the 7 categories you come up with, there could be multiple actions in those categories. So I will love to hear more in depth those 7 love languages that you came up with. Yeah, absolutely. So really, I think because we took this sort of empirical process with it. We did try to kind of take all the data that we gathered about what people said they wanted and see which buckets that feedback fit in. And that's how we came up with the 7. And there was some kind of back and forth. I wasn't sure if sex would fit in the same bucket as just snuggling and kisses and hugging. So that was a big question in my mind as it turned out it did, which I was actually a bit surprised at because from my perspective, you could be very in this stumbling but not a particularly sexual person, but again, kind of looking at it empirically and doing that statistical analysis, more or less at all fit together. So that's something that we came up with that we were doing our research. And we took the same approach with all 7 categories, just looking at what behaviors went together, you know, where we could make those connections. So in our system, we do have kind of 5 love languages that are roughly equivalent, but a little bit more sort of broader and more refined to the original 5 love languages. Words of affirmation we call appreciation and that encompasses, like I said, kind of congratulating your partner as well. Receiving gifts we have brought in because it's not just about gifts as it turns out. It's also about financial support and being there for somebody financially to provide for them if they need it. Stepping in to pay a bill if your partner is coming up short, putting gas in their car if they can't afford it, all that sort of thing. Offering for them to stay home if they're starting to hate their job, you know, I'll support us for a while. You just quit that sort of thing. Acts of service is really pretty equivalent. We call it practical. I think the biggest gendered area was in acts of service originally. So when we took another look at it, we looked at not just kind of that household division of labor because what I found was in the original system, it was a lot about giving men credit for just doing the bare minimum around the house and trying to pretend that that was an expression of love. Yeah. I could see that. So I don't think that really flies anymore. Certainly, that's still an attitude world trying to get away from to some extent, but I don't think we want to make it kind of the foundational belief of our system.

00:35:03 - 00:40:00

So when we sort of outline the practical love language, it's more about stepping in to do things that are not expected of you, taking on your partner's chores, making sure you do the things they really hate to do. That kind of going above and beyond and we want it to be really clear about that. And then to physical physical touch you brought up already, right? Physical touch is pretty much equivalent. It's, you know, like I said, we looked at snuggling versus sex. We found it was pretty on par with what the original love language looked like. And then quality time, we found was sort of the grab bag for everything else. So we have it basically broken down into three. Activity is one. And that has to do with doing things with your partner, joint, hobbies, joint interests, planning a vacation with them. Anytime that you are planning time with them and really the goal is to do something you both enjoy and really connect around that. And then the two love languages that really pretty new are intellectual, which has to do with kind of connecting on a mental level, discussing opinions, listening to your partner's opinions, providing kind of thoughtful advice, problem solving together, all that sort of cerebral stuff. And then finally, we have emotional, which again is about dealing with those difficult emotions and staying connected to your partner through that. So if they're crying, taking the time to listen to what's going on with them and be there for them, be supportive. That's really fascinating. We both took the quiz, so we wanted to see how we scored. So you do want to share your results first so that I could share mine. Sure. And I just want to clarify, is this scored from one to 7, 7 being most prevalent. No, it can have a wider range, so depending on how you kind of allocate all your available points within the test, you may have one love language that may be around 20, if you really, really prefer that love language, or they may be more balanced. Okay, so the highest score I got was a 7, and that was for intellectual. That came up first. And then I had three ties, activity, emotional financial, escort 6 on those, appreciation F 5, practical at four and physical at one. Wow. Interesting. Did that feel accurate for you? I think it's very accurate in my moment in time. What I currently need in my partnership and what I crave. I mean, we are long distance part of the month, so the physical touch as much as I love affection, I am also very realistic that I'm not getting it half the time. But the intellectual, I thought that was such a great addition to the love languages because Julie and I do this podcast and I'm so into self help and I love discussing these new theories and concepts with my partner. It brings me so much joy and I couldn't find that on the previous love languages. So the intellectual is extremely important for me because I want to talk about this new theory I learned or this new way of thinking about life. So that makes a lot of sense for me. That's awesome. That's really great to hear, yeah. Intellectual was a big one for me as well, not my primary, but it was a big one for me and something that was really missing for me as well. So I'm glad to hear you're in the same boat. Yeah, that was also my second one too. So I guess what's your first one? My first one was appreciation. I got ten, and then intellectual was 9. So a close second, emotional was 8, so I guess, you know, I'm taking advantage of the new ones and then physical is four activity is two financial is two in practical is zero. And I think that does make sense for me too because I think, you know, I think practical, I think it needs to get done, but I don't see it as how we show each other love in any way. And I think the physical maybe is a little lower than I would have thought, but I also feel like maybe it's a moment of time too, that I'm about a year into a relationship. So settling in a little more, being more comfortable and I feel like that's in a good place. So maybe it's like the emphasis on others, not that I don't feel like appreciation and intellectual are at a good place either. So maybe I shouldn't say that. But I think it's maybe, you know, on a day to day what I crave for, I guess that one's the only one that kind of surprised me. But you can't have it all, can you? Oh, I want to dig into this. This is good. This is good. Because I want to ask Julia clarifying question, or a more like investigative question, is so Julie's been doing a lot of returns, okay? So she just moved into a new place, as she bought a ton of new stuff and she is returning a lot of it as one would when you're trying to set up new nest. And her husband, her husband and I just called him your husband. Her partner is the one with the car. So he is the one who's been helping her doing all these returns, which apparently from Julie's perspective, it's happening on a regular basis. So to me, that's an act of service slash practical.

00:40:01 - 00:45:10

In your eyes, this is just something that needs to get done. It's not really a love language. Interesting, you know, I think I definitely feel loved when he does that. So I don't want to say it's not. I guess I wasn't even thinking of that as the practical, which I think is what is really opening my mind to this whole conversation too, is some of the things like I think a practical is picking up around the house. And of course, I appreciate when my partner loads the dishes or something like that. I'm never going to say, I don't. I don't know if I feel like, oh my God, this person's showing me love by doing this. It's more what you just said, you a of. This is something that needs to get done. And the car wants interesting because in theory, the key could say I don't want to drive you and do this. But so it's not like something that needs to get done. And I definitely appreciate that it's getting done. I don't know. It's an interesting one because I think I just didn't even like view that in that realm, even though it totally is in that realm. Oh, okay. Well, it could be the difference between, you know, what you appreciate in your glad your partner is doing it. You're glad he has the car that he's willing to do this. It's convenient, but does it make you feel loved? Does it really kind of hit home for you? Because that's really what we're talking about with love languages. Well, how would that? Because I think it is the feeling of appreciation. I know that's the number one I scored. Maybe that's more about words that make you feel appreciated. But it's almost like the action makes me feel appreciated in a way. Or maybe it's I appreciate that. I don't even know. I should go retake the quiz now. That's what I learned. Retake the quiz after your next return. Just do it. Maybe that's it. Is that done with it? It's not top of mind anymore. That could be a big part of it. Or it could just be something that's sort of functional for you, right? I mean, you want your partner to help you around the house, you want them to have a job and pay the bills, but you don't necessarily think, oh, yeah, now I really feel loved and connected because they're doing these things. There are so many levels of relationships and some of them are just very practical and functional, but that may not be what you connect with emotionally. Yeah, I think that is what it is. It's obviously those need to be there as a baseline, but they're not going to be the ones that I'm like, oh, I feel warm and fuzzy inside. Right. Either get a TaskRabbit or have my boyfriend take me, obviously prefer. My boyfriend, but doesn't mean that this task won't get done if he's not around. Exactly, exactly. What about you, Molly? How did you score differently on your new quiz versus the old 1980s to 90s love languages? I think I can't remember if I got words of affirmation or quality time as the number one on the old quiz. I think they may have been sort of neck and neck. But like I said, appreciation is the highest for me on the new one. Emotional and intellectual are both pretty high for me as well. Practical is very low financial is very low, almost nonexistent, like you, you know, I think practical does come more into play as life gets more stressful. So as you have kids and stressful jobs, maybe you become more aware of how important it is to have a partner who chips in, but it still doesn't really hit home for me the way a really nice compliment would. You know, if I get a really nice kind of personal compliment, that can stick with me for years, decades, whereas I don't think, oh, you know, that time that you drove me to the airport. You know, it's still top of mind. It just doesn't land with me the same way. So this actually, it just triggered something else kind of a similar to your follow-up. I was just even thinking about this morning where I was super stressed because my Instagram got hacked. And my partner won gave me a big hug, which does play into physical physical touch, but then what really helped me too was that he sent me instructions of how to handle this hack and then also I had a return something again and they're picky. Today and it required dissembling an item and he did that and that made me really happy because it was just one less thing that I needed to deal with when I was going through this. So I really do believe acts of service and I think the more and more into a relationship and when everyday stressors come up having that person that's there with you that is so important. Yet it seems like I'm not gravitated to that on these quizzes. Where do you think that disconnect could be? Well, I think it's just sort of that's not necessarily what love languages are about. That's more about the day to today functioning of your relationship. Do you work well together? Can you kind of divide tasks and you rely on them to do things. But that's a different level of your relationship versus how much do you feel that your partner loves and appreciates and connects with you. And I think if you have the base foundational stuff you can have a relationship that's functional, maybe it looks good to the outside, maybe you say there is nothing really wrong with my relationship, but it may be a little bit emotionally empty.

00:45:11 - 00:50:03

You may not feel like you're really in love with that person. It may just feel like, you know, you're good friends, your good partners, you're working together, but that kind of emotional charge is not there. I like this distinction because it does make sense in your example, Julie, is I feel similarly where when my partner does something nice for me like when he does the grocery shopping, I really appreciate it. It's very nice. I don't think it brings me closer to him, but it does make me appreciate him and enjoy having him in my life. But when my partner and I can sit down and talk about our relationship and our future on an intellectual level or even emotional level, that makes me feel everything. That just brings me so much closer to him physically, emotionally, soulfully all of it. So I think that is a very good distinction of the love languages and the purpose of it. So in your assessment, what I really got stumped on were the questions about what do you do to bring you closer to your partner? What is the purpose of those questions and how do they play into your results? Yeah, so like I said, we measure two directions of love style, basically. So what you want to receive, what really lands with you. And then what's your sort of go to when you're going to show love. So I think what you're talking about is the questions like your partner had a stressful day at work. What would you be most likely to do to kind of try to support them? Is it make them a meal? Is it give them a hug? Is it clean the house? So those are the questions we use to kind of measure the love styles that you express. And in the full test, we'll have kind of you saw your graph for the love languages you want to receive. We'll have a separate graph with those love languages that you put out there. And the purpose of that is really to help you understand kind of what's your go to. Then you can bring that to your relationships and see is that working as you're kind of go to a way of showing love, working for your partner, is it making them feel loved or are you just doing kind of what you're most comfortable with and it really isn't hitting home for them. That's going to be really profound because you can have those results of how you give love and then compare it to your partner's love languages and see if they are aligned or not. That's a great topic of discussion even. Absolutely. It can be a little scary. We had a little bit of an effie moment with a couple of our team members who are married to each other and they both took kind of the experimental assessment and their kind of give and receive graphs did not match up at all, but there's a simple explanation they have three kids under 8. So they're both speaking, speaking the practical love language like crazy, you know, one of them stressed out the other one makes dinner. The other one puts the kids to bed the other one gives the kids a bath. It's all practical all the time because they don't have a lot of room to do anything else. And it's not that it's a compatibility issue. It's just that they're kind of under the gun at this moment in time. But, you know, as their kids are growing up, they want to grow past that, they can kind of return to, okay, what's really important to me now that we have a little bit more breathing room here, what would I really like to bring back into our relationship? And you might have mentioned this a bit before of like why you re change the names. And they're like slight changes from going for words to affirmation to appreciation, for instance. Can you kind of elaborate a little more of what your thought process was on this? Well, we wanted to make sure it sounded distinct from the original theory that it wasn't confused. So we did want to have new terms, and because we did this kind of original research, we had our own sort of buckets of behavior that we wanted to name. So it was really a matter of looking at what was in there and what word really encompassed this kind of heart and soul of what we were talking about. So we wanted to keep them simple and not too stylized because this is an idea that people are familiar with. We don't want to have a lot of jargon that new jargon that people have to get used to. So we wanted to make it fairly straightforward, but we did want to make sure it really reflected like, for instance, financial reflects the fact that this new concept encompasses a lot more than just the gifts. And you mentioned that we shouldn't use these assessments as compatibility tests and even in your example of the married couple, it's not it doesn't mean that they're not compatible. It's just means that there are misaligned in this moment in time. But in that exact same example, if couples find that they are not aligned in their love languages, and yes, they may have kids and life happening, what can they tackle today versus waiting for that breathing room to happen later? Well, the best way to do that is to use these ideas as a way to articulate what you want. So don't just say, oh, I'm a physical, my love language is physical. Take the next step and say, what really does it for me is just a big long hug. And I made like a ten second hug, like you're holding me close and you don't let go.

00:50:03 - 00:55:04

That's it. And that really gives your partner that information about what they can do when they want to show love to you. What's really going to just hit the spot for you. And I think a big piece of this is that this is now reflecting modern times. We talked about this that the last one hasn't been done for since the 90s. That's a long time ago. There weren't even dating apps in the 90s. Barely Internet. It was dial up dial up to iOS. There were chat rooms if that counts. That's true. So you said that you saw a lot more around intellectual and emotional connection this time around. How do you think that reflects on current time? So we wondered, there's no way to really research this, but we wondered if the intellectual and emotional types of connection were connections that people didn't expect to have with an opposite opposite sex partner back in the 80s. Men probably tuned out any emotional deeds or they were expected to tune out those emotional needs. They were not expected to show weakness much less show weakness to their partner and have her support that. So that may have just been left behind and women probably were allowed to have those emotional needs, but maybe sought that to be met by other women. And on the same kind of tech, the sort of intellectual, that kind of meeting of the minds, maybe something that we expected men to do with other men rather than with their primary partner. So that may be why that wasn't really included in the original 5 love languages, but obviously as gender roles are kind of flexing and changing and also as marriage really isn't as functional as it used to be. Nobody needs to get married. So if we're going to get married, it's going to be because we want to have that best friend and partner in our lives. And we want to bring our whole selves to that relationship. We want to connect on a mental level. We want to connect on an emotional level, support each other, and help each other grow. It's just what we want from a relationship is totally changed. Nowadays we're looking for that best friend soulmate life partner all wrapped into one where back then probably weren't. Or didn't think it was possible, right? Right, right. In some ways, that makes relationships a lot more complicated. We're asking for a lot more, but we're also able to bring our authentic selves to relationships. We can be who we are instead of having to play this ward cleaver or June cleaver role and kind of fit ourselves into that. So if that is the case, what can singles do with the results? I'm sure we're going to have a lot of listeners who want to take the assessment. They're not coupled off. What can daters do with this information? So it's great to take before you get into a relationship because in you're so much more aware of your needs and so much more able to kind of manifest that for yourself. So taking the assessment, thinking about your past relationships or even thinking about your relationships with parents or siblings or friends and what they have done, that really connected for you really made you feel loved and appreciated. And use that as kind of your guiding light when you get into a new relationship or if you're kind of evaluating potential partners, kind of something to measure that against to see, is this really fulfilling for me? Why is it fulfilling? Why is this working for me? Why is it not working for me? And again, not that it's compatibility issue, but just that now you have the language to talk about what you're looking for and why that's what you need. And we've clearly talked about couples and how they can use love languages. But is there one thing that you would advise couples to start doing tomorrow after they take this new quiz? Yes, listen to your partner. This is all completely useless if you don't listen to your partner if you don't sit down with them and say tell me about that. Tell me about what makes you feel loved. Tell me about what you need and what you want. And then do it. Love languages is a great idea, but without that kind of intentionality and that presence, it doesn't go anywhere. So you really need to take that information and use it to be a better partner. And let your partner tell you what works for them. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you, volley for shedding the light on the new 7 love languages we're going to start reframing how we talk about it today. I think my biggest takeaway from this whole conversation was there is basically the baseline of being in a relationship and that can be defined by you and your partner. But then there's also this loving feeling that makes you feel deeply connected. And we spent a good portion of this conversation distinguishing between the two and it doesn't mean that one is more important than the other, but you almost kind of need both to make the relationship function at the level that we talked about of having that life partner best friend and soulmate. We want it all in relationships. So I think love languages is the best way to get to speak the same language essentially and be able to communicate and figure out what is it that's going to take our relationship to the next level and that's how I feel around you, but also maybe it can bring in some factors into the practical side too.

00:55:05 - 01:00:04

And I think my other big takeaway is that love languages can change depending on what stage of life you're in and that's okay and some of the ones that are always be core to you, but it doesn't mean that you're always stuck with these ones forever. Your needs can change. You can change at any time. And then my final takeaway is I'm so glad you are leading the charge in this and we're finally doing research that reflects current times because the fact that we are so reliant on all this stuff from the 80s and early 90s when dating and relationships were just so different. It's not the best guideline and basis for us to keep being in this world that just is not the same. So I love that we're making some progress and just continuing to refine these concepts as modern romance evolves. Awesome. Thank you. Yes, I'm glad those were your takeaways, those sounds. I would completely agree with all of that, especially the idea of those different levels of relationships. I think part of the progress we've made with this research is to delineate kind of what we just expect from our relationships and what takes it to the next level. Yeah, I want to echo exactly what you said, Julie, so I'll keep this very short. My biggest takeaway was we have certain things that maintain a relationship and we have certain things that grow a relationship. And I think this assessment is assessing what will help grow your relationship, but the maintenance of a relationship is also important to know because that's our baseline of what we are looking for and accept. So when we are dating, I think we need to pay attention to the baseline and not overly congratulate someone for doing their chores. That's not a love language, but it's a baseline decent human being decent partner behavior and a place into our standards and our values so the maintenance is just as important as growing the relationship. I love that we're putting a framework to all of this because when we talk about voicing your needs, I think so many of us don't have the vernacular to talk about what our needs are. And you've put some words in our mouth to express that so that we can use this toolkit when we express it to our future partners and current partners. So thank you for giving us language to use. Well, I'm so glad to put it out there, yeah. There was a stat. I think I believe Helen Fisher pulled this from a match that people were looking for that emotional and intellectual connection, even more than attractiveness at a partner, especially after the pandemic when we've kind of learned what's ultimately important in the long haul. So it's really fascinating and I think timely that the love language is now a reflecting the change of priorities for people. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's so important to have those keep up with what we really looking for right now. So Molly, if people want to take the assessment and learn more about the 7 love languages, where can they go? So you can go to trudy dot com slash love languages all one word. Do you have the full version of the assessment which came out on Valentine's Day? We do have a sort of a freemium model so you can take the quiz for free and you can get kind of a brief overview of your results for free and then we have a full report which explains how you give love how you receive love and how to use all that to make your relationship better. And you can upgrade to that for $19. Well, thank you so much. Everyone should definitely go out and take this quiz pronto. Thank you. I think so too. Let's update those ideas. Yeah, and then maybe once you're done taking the quiz share with us on Instagram, just tag us and then maybe hashtag, stay dateable, here are my results from the 7 love languages. We love to see what yours are. Show us your graphs. I really like that there's a graph so you can visually see which ones are more prominent for you. And you know while you're at it, your online anyway just go to Apple podcasts, give us 5 stars in Apple podcast reviews, write as a little love letter. We love that because of your reviews. We can get stellar guests like Molly here. So we really appreciate when you do that. See, appreciation. There we go. Love language. We appreciate when you do that. Okay, so we're going to wrap up this episode. Stay in the bowl. The dateable podcast is part of the frolic podcast network. Find more podcasts you'll love at frolic media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation? First, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with a handle at dateable podcast. Tag us in any post with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those pose. Then head over to our website dateable podcast dot com. There you'll find all the episodes as well as articles, videos, and our coaching service with vetted industry experts. You can also find our premium Y series where we dissect, analyze, and offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums.

01:00:05 - 01:01:23

We're also downloadable for free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Play, overcast, stitcher radio, and other podcast platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us, so don't forget to leave us a review. And most importantly, remember to stay dateable. You're the one who protects the flock, and that requires an eye for detail, because when safety and well-being are on the line, it's the details that can save lives. Even when no one else is watching, you see everything. Granger gets you and we're here for you, and all the ones who get it done with a wide range of safety products and solutions. Plus board certified safety consultants here to answer your questions. Call, click Granger dot com or just stop by. Granger. For the ones who get it done. Too many things in our lives require too much effort. But when it comes to disinfecting surfaces with the new Clorox disinfecting mist, you just spray and walk away. No wiping required. The aerosol free Clorox disinfecting mist kills 99.9% of germs on hundreds of surfaces with an easy to use continuous sprayer. And it comes in two delightful scents with the reusable sprayer and refills that help keep plastic out of landfills. Try the new Clorox disinfecting mist today. Use as directed. Rinse required on incidental food contact surfaces.