Professor reveals language of love

Love is a beautiful, complex and — at times — a confusing feeling to understand.

Dr. Mark Young, director of the school of education's marriage and family counseling masters program, explained the five different ‘love languages,' in a presentation last Thursday, "Discover your love language."

"When you think of the mission of Gonzaga, it's to develop the whole person. One of the greatest places to grow and find ourselves is in our relationships," Young said.

One of the top issues facing couples today is lack of communication, a problem that Young attributes partially to lack of time. In today's society, people are so busy their relationships don't get the healthy amount of attention they deserve. Busy schedules get in the way of connecting, not just in relationships but friendships as well, Young said.

While new technology has allowed us to become experts at multitasking, communicating through text messages and Facebook doesn't give us the emotional connection or closeness that we need, he said.

To build healthy and lasting relationships, one must understand how one feels loved and how others want to feel loved, Young said.

"Everyone when it comes to love speaks in different languages," he said. "We all show love in a different way."

Young referred to the book, "Five Love Languages," by Gary Chapman during his presentation. The book outlines the ways in which people communicate their love, through words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch. One of the biggest myths of love is that your partner can read your mind if they love you, Young said.

"If people identify what their love language is, it's easier to work with their partner," he said.
"Emotional fitness is essential to our health, affecting our immune and hormonal systems, and our ability to heal… We need to connect with other people. Part of our self worth comes from knowing that we matter in someone else's mind, it brings us comfort and meaning."

College students have a particularly busy schedule, so managing a large workload with a relationship can be challenging. Students set up an intentional schedule to get their work done. The same method must be applied to their relationships, Young said.

"People need to be intentional about creating specific moments," he said. "If people are task people, then they should put ‘build relationship' on their ‘to-do' list and they'll do it.

They'll become intentional with making their relationship a priority. It's definitely not going to be a quantity thing as far as time, because when you're in college your education is priority. But 10 to 20 minutes a day could make a difference in a relationship. Same goes for friendships."

Senior Robert Gonia believes students need to evaluate whether they're looking for a serious relationship or if they just don't want to be alone. "People need to know what their purpose for dating in college is," Gonia said. "Both people need to be equally busy, or one person needs to be understanding of the other person's workload."

Gonia spoke of his own relationship saying, "Time together is definitely scheduled and it depends on how busy we are. We try to eat dinner together and see each other later in the evening. On weekends we'll spend a few hours together where it's just the two of us. We also try to prioritize spending time with each other's social groups, so one group of friends isn't getting more time than the other."

Gonia believes understanding your partner's love language is important. "True love doesn't just happen, it takes work," he said. "Understanding each other's love language makes a difference. People show love the way they want to be loved and being able to love someone is to willingly make an effort to love them they way they want to be loved as well."
Even with limited free time, students can still have meaningful relationships, Gonia said.

"Holding hands is something that can be done while walking to class. Send a cute text in the morning like, ‘good morning, beautiful.' Gifts don't take a ton of time, but have a drastic effect, allowing you to be there without actually being there. All the little things that don't take a lot of time to execute mean a lot when done right," he said.

"When people look back on their college career, what they're going to remember about the experiences are the people they shared those experiences with," Young said. "The moments that matter the most include people."