There are many love languages, a concept and a phrase I think made popular by Gary Smalley back in the 70s, but my dad‘s love language is food.
Food is the very last conversation I ever wanna have. I am committed to destroying food’s power in my life. That is complicated much by the fact that this is my dad‘s love language. While you’re eating and devouring any given meal, he is already planning the next three meals or even the next week worth of meals. So not only can you not just simply be present and enjoy this meal, you also have to be future oriented and planning out the coming days and weeks. Infuriating. Incredibly difficult. Destruction of all my current goals.
But this knife cuts both directions. My love language is quiet, solitude, and silence. These are a complete anathema to my dad. He cannot stand one single second of silence. He will do anything, and say anything, and make any amount of noise necessary, to fill every single moment of silence. So my love language, and his love language, don’t work together so well. It’s not that I can’t plan out what we’re going to eat tomorrow, it’s just that I am past focusing on food 24/7. It’s not that he can’t have a moment of silence here and there, it’s just that if he has a choice he will never allow a moment of silence to occur.
So the thing he wants most and a thing I want most, neither of us ever receive. Hmmmmmm.
Yet we still get on so good. I guess real love can overcome even our primary love languages?
