Love Languages and How The Bachelorette is my Crack

Last week’s posts were heavy.  I like the heavy, but sometimes I’m not sure it reflects me completely.  In between all these deep thoughts, which are only written and rarely spoken, I’m doing not so serious things like laundry and making salsa (Ree’s Restaurant Style is to die for).  And mostly last week, watching the Bachelorette and basically being a complete and total fan girl about Emily and Jef.

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The Bachelorette is My Crack

I swore off the Bachelor/ette a few seasons ago.  In fact, I swore off a lot of TV in the past year or so.  Everyone has their weakness and I’ve just realized that TV is mine.  I can’t just watch a TV show.  Just like I can’t just buy a shirt. I have to rewatch every single scene 5 times, post all the animated gifs to Tumblr and watch all the fan videos on YouTube and then spam all my Facebook friends with them.  I’ve also been known to create an entire fan site or two.

Here’s what I relearned this summer with The Bachelorette: TV is my crack. 

We only get one life, folks.  And I don’t want it to be spent fangirling over strangers.  I mean, it’s fun and all, and it brings me a lot of joy.  And I still would be super excited to be new BFFs with Jemily when they get set up in Charlotte. But that’s just it, it brings *me* a lot of joy. 

I want my life to not be all about me. 

I mean, it’s my life, and I should be happy and all but I’d rather be happy about making an eternal difference.  If I had died with one of those people in Aurora, people could say I spent a lot of my last week on YouTube and I did a really great job culling up Bachelorette articles. SERIOUSLY.  This is our LIFE, folks. 

Alright, I’ll hop off my soap box.  I needed to give myself a good talking to but let’s be done with that. 

While we’re camped out on the Bachelorette, I figured we may as well learn something from all my devoted hours of TV watching.

The Bachelorette and Love Languages

I promise I’m not going to Jesus Juke this whole thing but I do think there’s a good applicable reminder in here.

I had a realization today of why everyone is in love with Emily and Jef.  And specifically, Jef. 

Jef is really good at expressing himself. And it’s not just his eloquence.  Jef is really good at all the love languages and furthermore, he’s spot-on with Emily’s.

The proof:

Words of affirmation

By far, I think Emily’s prominent love language is Words of Affirmation.  If you watch back, Emily was always so focused on what the guys were saying.  It was a huge deal when Sean had a hard time saying I love you. 

Jef is a hopeless romantic and knows just how to communicate his feelings.  He says things like we need to bridle our passions and I’m smitten with her and I want to spend every night with you in our own fantasy suite.  The guy is smooth.  And Emily ate that up. 

The fact that Jef is quite eloquent coupled with Emily love for words of affirmation, played a huge part into her falling for him. 

Touch

Anyone that watched could tell you that Emily liked to kiss.  A lot.  She was kissing left and right (no blame here, Emily).  The one time she got frustrated with Jef was when he wouldn’t kiss her.  Was anyone just dying when he wouldn’t kiss her on the beach?  Gah.

I’m going to bet Emily’s second love language is touch.  Jef finally got on the ball in London and they never looked back.  If you watch their scenes, he was always playing with her dress or rubbing her arm or holding her hand.  Jef expressed his love well through touch. 

Gifts

I think out of any of the bachelors, Jef did the best at giving gifts.  They don’t have a ton of opportunities to give each other gifts but one that stuck out to me was Jef buying Emily the puppet in Prague and including one for Ricki.  You could tell Emily felt very loved. 

He also gave her the book from Curacao and took the time to draw stick figures of them.  Cheesy, but Emily ate it up.  I can’t really blame her. 

Oh and let’s not forget the beautiful flowers he gave to Emily’s mom and future sister-in-law.

Quality Time

Emily and Jef probably lacked time the most.  They only had a handful of dates but time was important to them. She gave Jef the fantasy suite card so she could spend more time with him and they were constantly reminding each other how much they loved their time together.

Acts of service

Acts of service was probably the least represented from the season but I think Jef did little things like pulling out seats for her at the dinner table, giving her a blanket when it was cold and paddling them around a cove to send things through the roof.

 

Of course, I think there is much more to Emily and Jef’s match, but I certainly think their love language match is a huge factor in their connection.

Sean had a hard time expressing his love in words—a deal breaker for Emily. 

Ryan vomited out of the mouth constantly–a major turn off for Emily. 

Doug had a hard time kissing Emily–it sent him home. 

Arie was good at both words and touch–landing him in the final two.

I would mention Chris but I think he’s still fuming somewhere.

The display of the love languages didn’t just cement Emily and Jef’s connection, but the audience’s connection to Jef as well.

I wonder if people were to read this and then watch back, would they recognize they were drawn to Jef when he displayed their own love language? 

Did you hear he just said he’s smitten with her, he’s so sweet!

That kiss was amazing, he must really love her!

Wasn’t it so sweet he bought Ricki a doll?  He just thinks the world of them!

And since Jef was so good at all of the love languages, I think he was well-loved by the majority.  Each person could usually find something to be drawn to. 

 

Why am I being a dork and analyzing all this?  Let me get to the point. 

The real point to all this rambling is how important our love languages are and how we ought to let that translate to our spouses (and even kids!).  If you don’t know your spouse’s love languages, RUN to the book store and get the book. 

The thing is, many of us are not matched in our love languages and are not naturally good at expressing love in all the different languages. 

Mine is words of affirmation and Scott’s is touch.  I always know if I need Scott’s attention, it’s through an unexpected kiss and if he wants on my good side, it’s through washing the dishes or a well-played compliment. 

When we become self-aware enough to recognize our own love language and our spouse’s, we can learn to speak our love in such a way that they know without a doubt we’d pick them out of a crowd of 25 every. single. time.

If you know your spouse’s love language—use it!  It’s not manipulation, it’s simply showing your spouse your love in the language they understand.

 

So, I’m curious. Is TV your crack?  What’s your love language?