Ed.
A podcast covering topics related to education, communication, and beyond. Smart and frank conversation about topics that matter to students, faculty, and community.
Ed.
Episode 8- College Relationships
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This month on Ed. Andy and Twyla sit down to discuss college friendships, college romantic relationships, and love languages and love styles. All of this on a special Valentines Episode of Ed.
For further information about Ed. Please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com.
Because love is complicated.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is. But it adds to that shared knowledge, it adds to that shared meaning that you get from another person, and it just makes your relationship much stronger. Right. Absolutely. This month on Ed, Andy and Twila sit down to discuss college friendships, college romantic relationships, and love languages and love styles. All of this on a special Valentine's episode of Ed. We are back with another episode of Ed, and I'm here with my co-host Twila.
SPEAKER_01Hello again.
SPEAKER_00And we are talking about relationships this week. We're talking about college relationships this week.
SPEAKER_01I think it'll be a really interesting conversation.
SPEAKER_00I think so too. So what about uh why are we doing this? Why are we talking about relationships? Why is this important? And why is this something that well, I mean, I know why it's important, but I'm asking the question. Why is this something that we're talking about on a podcast?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great question. So I think one, we want to make sure we define what a relationship is because we're going to cover a lot of different types of relationships in this podcast. But I think it's important because, well, I don't know. I'm thinking of it as a parent with a young adult child and two teenagers, myself, um, thinking about how sometimes difficult it can be to make friends and then to uh out of friendship sometimes grow romantic relationships. I think it's important, it's something that our students are interested in finding out more about. And it's something that they've expressed maybe difficulty with how do I make friends that are not just on the technology and and things like that. But how would you define? So, again, to back up just a second, how would you define a relationship?
SPEAKER_00In my eye, in my eyes, and the way I've always viewed relationships, is it's basically, and I'm gonna sort of bring this into two different ways. Relationship is basically anything that you have really with somebody else. So it's you know, a romantic relationship, a friendship, workplace relationship, all of those things are that. But then you also have an interpersonal relationship, which tends to be the deeper form of that relationship. So I think we're talking more here about interpersonal relationships. I agree. I don't think we're talking about workplace. I think we're gonna sort of put that aside for this conversation. But I think we're definitely talking, and I guess kind of workplace when you think of students, but I think we're talking more along the lines of friendships and romantic relationships here.
SPEAKER_01Right, absolutely. And what you said is that you, you know, you have to put work into it. We it's something that is a little deeper than just those impersonal relationships that we we talk about in our interpersonal class.
SPEAKER_00So and there's a continuum model of communication that basically states you have an I it, you have I you and I thou type of relationships. I it is more focused on sort of treating the other person not as human. Like we're not we're not worried about that. I you is more focused on a social role. So sometimes I think some students come to college and they have that social role mentality, right?
SPEAKER_01And that's all they think of.
SPEAKER_00And that's all they think of. And that's and that's really also what we're trying to get out of. We want to get to the I thou relationships, the friendships and romantic relationships where you put your phone aside and you talk to each other and you're looking at each other and you're creating those moments together, and you're creating that shared understanding and shared meaning together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and where you can be your true self with each other. And so all of that is those are those interpersonal I thou relationships that we're looking at. So um, as we as we start off, we've defined relationships. In our first segment, I think we want to talk about creating those healthy relationships and some of the expectations of relationships in college specifically.
SPEAKER_00So let's start with friendships. How do you how do you create a friendship?
SPEAKER_01That's a great question. That's a great question, isn't it? Sometimes it's easier said than done, right? No, I have an article um that is called 10 Tips to Healthy Relationships in College that was put out in 2018. Uh, and it talked about first that people with healthy relationships, so we could call those friendships, romantic relationships, they really do have more happiness and less stress, which I'm all about, you know, getting rid of some stress in my life, a little more happiness. But how do I do that? How do I make a friend in college, right? It's been a long time since I started this college process, but it's been a long time since I've done that as well. So but the article says we need to do things like keep our expectations realistic. We need to talk to each other. What? We need to talk to each other. I know. Um, but also it goes on and on to say we have to be flexible, you have to take care of yourself, you have to be dependable, fight fair, all of these different things. It seems like there are a lot of common sense, don't you think?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. It's absolutely common sense. And I actually have a book that I've been looking at too. Um, and it's written by a Dartmouth professor, Janice McCabe, Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends, How Campuses Shape College Students Networks. And it really came out of the COVID pandemic, the uh from you know, 2000, obviously, and on. And she basically came up with some things to also think about in a post-COVID world when it comes to friendships, too. And she basically states that, you know, a lot of people are trying to redevelop their social skills and try to come back from a point where we weren't using them for a long period of time. Right. So she has some tips also that go along with that. Um, not clinging to the first group that you come along.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's really good. That's really good.
SPEAKER_00I think that's also good because she talks about how the first couple of weeks of college are the first prime meeting time for students. And she calls it the initial friendship market. I love that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, but she, you know, talks about how you know that can create a lot of pressure at the beginning. Um, and when you cling to those people, maybe those aren't necessarily the people you should be clinging to.
SPEAKER_01Right. You know, that's interesting because I've I've literally had that conversation with my youngest, who's a freshman right now, um, talking about the fact that as he's going into a new school, there's a whole lot of new friends, but you don't have to necessarily build and maintain a best friend friendship with that first group. So that's really good advice.
SPEAKER_00No, and you you can still find good friendships there. It's not a then we're not saying don't, but keep your options open. And we talked about keeping your options open. That's that's the biggest thing is do that. Don't cling to the first group and seek out seek out the places that you can meet multiple times. I like that. She says seek out spaces for repeated interaction. Um, but yeah, find those places where you can actually see people all the time.
SPEAKER_01So, what would that look like?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think you know, if we tend to think about our campus, you've got the student center. Student center is a place where you can find people all the time. You can find people all the time in the quad walking around, obviously. The the performing arts center has a nice, you know, area out in the middle of it where we have a bunch of flags, and it's also a nice place where people can just sit and talk. Study and hang out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it also brings me to our classes. Like when you have a group of people that are regularly together. So for instance, in your classes, that makes a great pool of possible interactions or what whatever she called them, those uh first. Repeated interaction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Not clinging to the first, but yeah, clinging to our repeated interaction. But also along with that, I know we talked about talking about this. We have our club rush coming up next week on our campus. And we talked about actually this last I think podcast episode number two. We had a club rush then. Oh my gosh, we're all we're in club rush number two now on the podcast.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Uh, but we have it coming up, and that's also a great way to get repeated interactions.
SPEAKER_01Join clubs, right?
SPEAKER_00Join campus organizations, you'll get to meet more people.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And you might be even like-minded with those people, right? Whenever you're joining a club, it's possibly because you are interested in that subject uh or you know, you're looking to build that network. And so that shared common interest is is really helpful in determining some additional friends.
SPEAKER_00And going back to what we said before, if you don't have to stick to those things either. Uh, with a nice thing about a club rush is you can go and meet a lot of different people and a lot of have a lot of different interactions.
SPEAKER_01Right. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And not have to focus on one.
SPEAKER_01Now you said that this article was really focused on the post-pandemic friendship. What do you personally think was different about forming friends before or after COVID?
SPEAKER_00I think before COVID, you had a lot more of face-to-face interactions with people. I think you had a lot more opportunity for face-to-face interactions with people. And I think that you have people who are not as tied to their phones. They're not attached to Facebook. They're not attached. Well, I'm an old person. Facebook. They're not attached to Instagram and TikTok, and they're not, you know, they weren't as at least when I was going to school, you made friends by talking to people.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_00You didn't make friends by, you know, just sitting on an app of social media app.
SPEAKER_01Right. You're absolutely right. I'm reading a book called The Anxious Generation, How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. But in this book, it talks about the fact that the first foundation, here's a quote: the first foundational harm is social deprivation. Now, you don't think about that whenever you think about being connected to so many people online. But when we are engaged in our phones and not engaging in those face-to-face interactions, we are much more isolated.
SPEAKER_00And my son, my oldest son, actually experienced this completely. He was so used to having that face-to-face interaction with people that it when he left, I mean, was in the middle of COVID and everything else, and he wasn't in school, he had sort of he regressed, he completely regressed into a social media, gaming, like just that's where he was. Right. And he couldn't go back to it. He tried to go back to it. He tried like freshman year, he tried to go to high school. It didn't work. He had to be homeschooled after that because he couldn't deal with it. He couldn't deal with the face-to-face interactions anymore because he had been so socialized with social media and everything else.
SPEAKER_01Right. I I see that sometimes with my students, and until I encourage slash make them all put away their phones and actually talk to each other. But the the conversations that we have are so much richer and you get to know people on a deeper level when you are able to engage in that face-to-face contact as well. But it's a great book talking about what schools can do and what parents can do and just understanding that rewiring that has happened when uh the generation that we have now has grown up with a technology-based childhood as opposed to a tech-free.
SPEAKER_00And it's just it's a shame that that's what's happened. I think it was unpreventable. I don't think we could have prevented it because I mean we had to have what we had with COVID.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But I think that it's gonna be at least, I would say at least another 10 years before we get to a point where I think we're back to where we were.
SPEAKER_01But I think that even if it's a new normal and even if we don't ever go back to where we were because we're constantly changing and evolving and growing, I think that there are still things that we can do to make sure that we're growing healthy and stable relationships. Um another article that I printed was talking about how to make friends in college or university. And uh it goes into not only making friends, but sometimes those friends grow into romantic relationships. But um, you know, visiting other people, all a lot of the same things that we've already talked about. But it says it might be easier than you think because people want friends and relationships in their lives.
SPEAKER_00It's a primary foundation of our lives. We need we want friends, we want romantic relationships. Um, I think that being able to find them on a college campus is easier than you think. And it's just a matter of putting yourself out there and not being afraid to do that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's the biggest thing is trying to alleviate the fear of everybody to not put yours, you know, to put yourself out there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It rejection sucks. It's not fun, it's not a good thing. I mean, especially when it comes to a friendship, too. You're trying to build a friendship and and somebody just doesn't want to do that. But they're not worth your time.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. Putting yourself out there is so important, being vulnerable and and appropriately self-disclosing and and things like that. Those are so valuable in the those beginning stages of a friendship.
SPEAKER_00And that was the attitude I had in 2001, too, when I was in college. Was that if somebody doesn't want to be with you, then they don't want to be with you and they're not worth your time.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00It's more advantageous for you to continue to put yourself out there and find your people.
SPEAKER_01Right. It absolutely is. I share in class all the time that I, you know, I had a lot of friends whenever I was in the structures of high school and college. And it wasn't until I became a stay-at-home mom that I realized, oh, I might need to brush up on how to make friends, right? Because it's again putting yourself out there in those uh situations that people have shared life experiences and things like that. But but you can do it, right?
SPEAKER_00You can absolutely do it. I think that's a great place for us to take a break. Um, we will come back and discuss romantic relationships next. And we're back. And I think that it's an important question to ask is college romance over? That's a great question. That's a great question.
SPEAKER_01Before you get into your research, I would love to tell you that um I married my high school sweetheart. So we didn't go to the same high school, but we uh we started dating when I was in high school. And it's so it's been a really long time since I've dated anyone. But I think it's really interesting to to hear what you were sharing about is romantic relationship, are romantic relationships in college dead? Because it doesn't mean that they're all or are they over. Uh, but what does the research say?
SPEAKER_00So uh the trends show that uh we haven't bounced back yet after after COVID. So before COVID, uh a Pew Research Center stated that uh the number of people uh in romantic relationships who were in college rose to about 65%. Now it's in 2014. In 2020, after pandemic, after the pandemic started, dropped to 15%.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, you know, numerically that surprises me, but in the context of what was going on in COVID and everybody having to switch to online learning and and things like that, it really doesn't surprise me that much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it doesn't surprise me either. I don't think they're dead. I think that's there's hope. That is a little bit of a of a panic attack there. I don't think they're dead. Um, I do think that there are factors that are are going to have an effect on it for a little bit of time. I think one of those is the shyness factor. I think shyness is becoming uh much more of a trend because of the pandemic. I think that you're going to see some anxiety as well. I think anxiety is another thing that is going to stunt some of that maturity um that uh students have or should have at that point. Um, and I I agree with the article. The article talks about both of those things, and I think it it says those pretty well. Uh, but I think that that's what's is going to happen. I think we're going to see those be the biggest factors in trying to hold down romantic relationships. But no, I do not think romantic college is dead.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's good. That's good. But no, I think that what you're saying is probably we were talking about friendship in the second segment right before this. I think that the same types of trends are in friendship, even though this article is talking specifically about romantic relationships. I think people don't reach out as much, perhaps, to create that because maybe they don't see the value in friendships and and romantic relationships. I know that it said later in that article that there are a lot of people who are quite happy being single.
SPEAKER_00There are 81% of college students in a Tinder survey. So we'll take Tinder. Yeah. We'll take Tinder with a grain of salt, but I think it's true. I think people are much happier being single right now. Right.
SPEAKER_01Anecdotally, that's true for several people in my family and people that I know just in circles, uh, social circles. Um, they're quite content with being single, and they don't necessarily see the cost-benefit analysis of a relationship.
SPEAKER_00But let's talk about that for a second. I think that there is a huge benefit of a romantic relationship. I think there is an emotional uh benefit to being in a romantic relationship. We'll talk about the fact that it's also an emotional detriment to sure. Um, I think that you know it works both ways. Yeah. I think that um when you are in a romantic relationship, maybe also your academic performance might be a little bit more impacted as well. Again, both ways. I think when you're with somebody who motivates you, it tends to push you to do better.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00When you're with somebody who is taking up all your time and you're you're all lovey-dovey, and maybe uh maybe you're not studying as much.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, I do think it's it depends on the value of that you put on in the relationship, but also the quality of the relationship that you have. So we've all seen people who have really just terrible relationships, and their quality of life is also impacted by that.
SPEAKER_00It is, absolutely. And I think if your quality is, I mean, if you find a quality person, you find your person, then things are good, obviously. And hopefully that makes the real your college experience much stronger. And that's what they always say is that college is the best years of your life.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00And if you find that good one, then yeah, college is the best year of year of your life. If you find the really bad one, maybe not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's an episode on Mel Robin's podcast that says eight truths about college that nobody tells you. And it talks about um a lot of the things that we have to worry about or we have to concern ourselves with. Um, about the there's sometimes a hookup culture in colleges. There's the drinking, there's the uh stopping cling stop clinging to your high school friends. A lot of these things that people concern themselves with that we don't necessarily talk about a lot.
SPEAKER_00That's the first thing that psychology today says. Psychology Today says, get rid of your high school relationships. Uh, don't bring high school relationships into college. I'm like, really? Wow.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that is, and you know, for some of our students are dual credit students. I'm thinking specifically of them, but maybe maybe we won't say don't bring them into college, but open yourself up to experiencing new friendships, not just the same circles that you've always been with.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And that's exactly what they're trying to say is that when you bring somebody, we toe up toe somebody into a real you know from a previous high school relationship, you're you're limiting your freedom.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And that's really what they say college is supposed to be the most exciting time of your life because of that freedom. Lots of freedom. Because you get some more of those possibilities.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And you get to meet a lot of different people and you get to, as they say, plenty of fish.
SPEAKER_01Sure. That is what they say. But you know, when you have uh certain either friendships or romantic relationships that start earlier, you can transition them to a different level and and things like that. But um, but yeah, that's what a lot of the the things that we're reading say is that remember that this is a new time. This is a new group of people, a new set of people that you can make really quality um memories with.
SPEAKER_00The other thing I like that Psychology Today says is you want to find your right person. You don't want to find somebody who's there to fix a problem. You don't want to find somebody there who you're trying to basically f be to be somebody there to fix your your emotional state. Um, you want to find somebody because they're the right person for you. Right. Um, and you don't want to fall into a toxic situation where you know, power dynamics. And and other issues start to come into play because you didn't, or because you were trying to fill a void or you were trying to fix something that was missing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And I know we're going to talk about love styles and love languages in the next episode or in the next segment, but I do think that that's really important because your person is is special and significant for you. But everybody's going to have a different set of qualities that they're looking for, a set of experiences that they share with those, with those people. I love this book. I've just glanced through part of it, but it's called How to Be an Adult in Relationships. One adulting, yes. The five keys to mindful loving by David Rico. And it talks about one of the sections talks about am I cut out for a close, intimate relationship? Which is a question that a lot of times people think of. But it says we may feel attached to someone and imagine that we love them. Someone may be attached to us and imagine that he loves us. But mindful loving is bonding by commitment, not attachment by clinging. Just like you were saying, we don't want somebody that's just clinging to us because either we're the first person or because we're what they think is the only option. Clinging is not the same thing as mindful loving.
SPEAKER_00No. And in order to have a fruitful romantic relationship, you need to spend time with each other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You need to get to know each other. You need to embrace um the learning process. I love that. It's it's an education, it's an education podcast. Embrace the learning process of that person.
SPEAKER_01Now, what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_00I mean you need to, and we talk about this all the time in interpersonal communication. You have to create a point of a point of of time where you both have the same shared meaning of each other. Right. Where you learn that, you know, what you know particular things mean to that person, time, right, love, you know, all of those things. You need to know what those things are about the other person. You can't figure that out.
SPEAKER_01You mean it's not immediate?
SPEAKER_00No, you can't figure that out in three weeks.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00No, you're absolutely you can't figure that out in two months because I've had a two-month engagement. You know, we were in, you know, that didn't last long. Um, but yeah, it's you you have to spend a lot of time together. And, you know, I you know met my wife and we spent a year before I, you know, decided that that was the point where I knew.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So I think a lot of people are at least younger people before. I don't think it's happening now. I think the trend is starting to go the other direction. But I don't want people who are listening to this think, oh, I need to go out and find somebody and you know, the podcasters are saying this.
SPEAKER_01And then you're gonna live happily ever after. Live happily ever after.
SPEAKER_00No, you need to spend time with these people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. The book that I was uh talking about, that how to be an adult in relationships, talks about the potential for success in a relationship is directly proportional to, and then it lists 10 areas of work that we need to do to be mature adults because relationships take work. Some of the things that they say um you need to work through is about your own self-esteem, dealing with childhood issues, letting go of uh control sometimes, freeing ourselves from fear and being comfortable with feelings and and conflict. So there's a lot of things that we can we need to work on in our own selves while we're working on the relationship as we're going through those relational stages. It's really valuable to know it's it's not immediate and it takes work.
SPEAKER_00And there's a reason why. The first thing that we talk about is self. When we talk about when we're in our interpersonal communication classes, the first chapter after what is interpersonal communication is self.
SPEAKER_02It is.
SPEAKER_00It is discussing self because if you don't know who you are, you will not be able to have a fruitful and and and good relationship. And that that's that's all relationships. That is romantic relationships, friendships, workplace, everything, family relationships. All of those things are not going to happen and go well if you can't have a functioning self.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah, that's so important to evaluate yourself and then to build that other the other relationship. One last thing that I wanted to add, uh, when you were talking about sometimes being introverted or extroverted and how that uh can impact your ability to build those friendships or to develop them further. Um, in this book, it talks about how to love an introvert, how to love an extrovert, because we understand that that might look differently. Your perspective and your life experience, and then your partners, you've got to work on figuring that out together. So I just really enjoy um some of the concepts in that book.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's funny in psychology today. I'm looking at it right in the face. Sometimes you need to embrace your quirkiness. Yes. You need to be yourself authentically, and you all just you know say I'm just citing the source. Be yourself authentically and unapologetically, and I've said that before anyway.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, because everybody's quirky, everybody has little little things. Yeah, everybody does little things, and that's okay, and it's perfectly okay for that to be that way.
SPEAKER_01And I think it's wonderful, actually.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And the other person needs to embrace that and needs to be happy with that and and love that quirkiness because if they don't, then they're not they're not your person.
SPEAKER_01Right. They're not your person. Yeah, absolutely. Uh there's a a little tip that it says in one of the the articles that I'd pulled up about being, let's see, this one is succeed socially, but it says don't use your work or schoolwork as an excuse to not have a life, which I really just really appreciate. Like in addition to us being authentically quirky if we are or whatever, but being real, but also don't just put the fact that I'm a college student, I'm busy, I'm working and doing all these things as an excuse to not have a life, to not build those friendships, because it is so important.
SPEAKER_00It is. And I think some other things to think about that are are also important that I want to put out there. This is actually from Utah State University put out an article called Love and Relationships: A College Student's Guide to Balancing Romance and Academics. Um, I think, you know, some other things that you when you are in a relationship, a romantic relationship, um, these are things that I think are important for you to keep in mind. One, communication.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, the secret to balancing love and studies is what it says. But communication, it's it's funny, they say communication as the secret sauce. Yeah. Yeah. Do I have to tell you? I have to tell that to everybody. Uh, but talk to each other. Don't, don't just assume or don't just, you know, don't just leave it or letting something lie. If you can't be, if you can't hang out with somebody because you need academic time, tell them.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, if you can't, if you need some, you know, if you need somebody, they want, you need some study help, talk to them. You know, you never know. They might be able to come and help you.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um keep, you know, an exam time. Make sure that you are keeping, you know, things understood in the relationship so that the stress of the relationship is not translating into stress of the exams.
SPEAKER_01Right. And vice versa.
SPEAKER_00Keep those things out, you know, keep keep things calm during that. Um, if you're in a long distance relationship, you need to communicate every day. Um, and oftentimes, you know, a lot of the times, and it's funny because the research has is changed. When I was, you know, first in college and first doing this, when I was first teaching, long distance didn't work.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But it does now, and it works a lot now because people learned that you have to communicate. Right. And you have to keep communicating every day.
SPEAKER_01You really do.
SPEAKER_00Um, and interpersonal communication is important every day.
SPEAKER_01Even if you don't see each other.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, and then also just make sure that you don't let a romantic relationship destroy or have a huge impact on your friendships too.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I think that's so important to recognize that yes, you may be in a romantic relationship, but you still have other aspects of yourself, your other relational needs that can be met with those friend groups. So that's really a valuable tip. I remember when I was in college. So Fred and I didn't go to the same college, right? We met uh whenever I was uh a junior, junior senior in high school. We had already determined where we wanted to go to college, and we made sure to commit to that decision. So don't let one person dictate or or possibly change your mind based on something. And I think that's really important. It was helpful for me to be able to balance college and the romantic relationship because I knew where who I was going back to that self. But I think that's really important.
SPEAKER_00Yep, know yourself. I think we're gonna take one more break and we'll be back to talk about love styles and uh love languages. And we're back, and we're gonna get into a discussion starting with love languages.
SPEAKER_01Yes, love languages.
SPEAKER_00What are love languages?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I really like to think of love languages. It's based on a book called The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman. And the way I like to think of love languages is how you're communicating andor understanding love from your partner. They actually have several versions of the book. They have one for couples, but they have one for um for your children. They have one for the workplace. They call it something slightly different. But those love languages are how you communicate love and/or how you understand love given to you by your partner.
SPEAKER_00And there are five, there are five love languages: uh words of affirmation, uh, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality time, and acts of service.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And I encourage you all to read the book. I encourage you all to go check this out, or just you can look them up online too. Uh, I'm not gonna go deep into all five of those.
SPEAKER_01Right. But I think it's important for us to understand our own love language as well as our partners, because the way I explain it in class sometimes is the fact that if I'm communicating love to you, let's say that that's my I'm gonna use an actual language, but let's say I'm speaking English for my love to you, but you speak Spanish, right? It's gonna be really difficult for you to understand the love that I'm sending you in a certain way. So, my, for instance, my one of my primary love languages is um quality time. So this means that I I like to not just spend time with you, but it needs to be quality. It needs to, you don't need to be scrolling on your phone and you need to be actually engaged with the the conversation and and whatever is going on. But if my partner uh or my husband is engaging in a different love language, if I didn't know that about him, I might not feel very loved. So I'll just tell you, Fred's love language for sure is acts of service. And sometimes he will do that. So he he serves the family, he serves me by cooking dinner or by filling up my car with gas or things like that. So he's showing me love. But remember, I said my love language was quality time. So so if I didn't understand that that's how he was showing me love, then I would feel very pouty whenever I'm just like, I want you to spend time with me. And he's feeling very well, I am showing you love by doing these things. So understanding each other's love languages is really valuable.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and understanding, you know, and you're not gonna get it in five minutes. And that's we talked about that in the last segment. You're not gonna learn from somebody in five minutes what they're all about.
SPEAKER_01Right. And sometimes we might not even realize what that is with without um without really getting to sharing some of our own experiences and and talking through those difficult conversations of, well, I don't feel very loved right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, so so I encourage everyone to read the book and and there's some little assessments that you can do, whether you're single or in a relationship.
SPEAKER_00So that also brings us to a discussion of love styles as well. And the love styles that I'm used to are the six that come from Greek that are basically uh the primary styles being Eros, Ludus, and Storge. Uh Eros being about passionate love, Ludus, playful love, storge, friendship-based love. And then secondary love styles are sort of combinations of those, which would be mania, which is Eros and Ludus together, very obsessive, possessive, dependent, dramatic, uh, pragma, ludus, and storge, logical, practical, sort of, you know, the practical love. And then agape being the more altruistic, selfless, you know, I would take a bullet for you type of love. But there has been a more shift in focus to a more relationship-focused love styles, which we have five of, um, which are, I think, brought out in this book, which is uh How We Love, uh, by um Mylan and Kay Yerkovich. Um, and I was able to peruse this a little bit. Uh, but those five love styles, uh relationship-focused love styles, are the avoider, which is evaluating more of the independence, on being uncomfortable with emotional closeness, self-sufficient, uh, the pleaser, which is more focused on making other people happy, um, struggling more with boundaries and saying no. Um, that's me. Uh, the facilitator, longing for connection but feeling let down more often than not, um, and also in conflict between closeness and distance. The controller, who needs uh to be in charge uh and to feel safe, uh, dislikes being outside of their comfort zone. And the victim, who is sort of the person who feels powerless and often blames others.
SPEAKER_01Right. And then there's the secure connector. The secure connector, yes.
SPEAKER_00I think I said there are five, and they're actually six. Yeah. Uh the secure connector, which is basically balancing intimacy and independence together.
SPEAKER_01So so we're talking about these different love styles or love attitudes and these um, this component of how we love with the avoider and the pleaser and and et cetera. Either way we look at these, I think it's important for us to understand that the there is a lot of ability to maybe vacillate between a couple of the love styles. Um, and there's just so much interesting conversation that you can have with yourself and with your partner once you figure this out about yourself. So in the book How We Love, the discovering your love style and enhancing your marriage, it really focuses on the fact that these different uh styles of love, or um, if you want to look at them, we don't want to say the same word, but kind of viewpoints of love are based on your attachment style. So we talk about attachment theory, and it says um simply put, oh, sorry, that's a wrong quote. Let me move to the other one. All of us have an imprint of intimacy, the sum of learning how to love. And that imprint determines our love style. So basically, what we grew up experiencing, experiencing love with those attachment styles will impact our later adult relationships.
SPEAKER_00And it's important to know that those attachment styles are for adult attachment styles. There is the uh secure attachment style, which is basically having a very positive view of other people and also a positive view of yourself. Um, on the other side, there's the fearful attachment style, which is the negative view of others and the negative view of self. Um, you have the anxious attachment style, which is more about um sort of a positive view of others. So you you really like you know being around others. And as you grew up, you sort of had an inconsistent childhood. Like one minute your parents were like, We love you, and the next minute they're like, Who are you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Uh, and that was actually me. That's that's that's I would totally self-identify as the anxious. Um, and that's you know, a negative view of self. Um, and then the dismissive, which is a negative view of others, but a positive view of self, and that's because you were neglected and you sort of had a lot of time to be with yourself. Right. So you really like yourself, but other people not so much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And again, you can take these assessments even as an adult and figure out what is your adult attachment style, uh, which is really valuable when you're working on developing those relationships. Because if your partner has a dismissive attachment style and you have an anxious or a secure, it's still going to impact the way you communicate with each other and the way that develop that relationship develops.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. And I think that the book does a really good job of sort of bringing these together and has chapters that tell you uh, hey, here's what happens when an avoider is with a pleaser.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely when a controller is with a victim.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it's not prescriptive, as in it's always going to happen in this way, but it does bring it to light so that you can really think about and reflect on the relationships that you have. Um, it asks several questions to help you understand your love style based on your attachment style, which I think is really valuable, especially as young adults, uh, which our our podcast listeners are probably young adults, trying to figure out who they are and how they love each other. So I think it's absolutely a lot of value there.
SPEAKER_00And that, you know, sort of links back to what I said before about the six, you know, the love styles from Greece, too, is it was again like, you know, what happens when you have a mania with a store gay? Yeah. What happens when you have, you know, a pragma, you know, with an arrow?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, those can be, those can be difficult for sure. Not impossible relationships, but certainly difficult. But understanding each other's love styles and love languages is really valuable in figuring out when you're you're not alone in the relationship, right? And that you may speak and feel differently about love based on our own past experiences, based on our attachment styles, based on so many things. Uh, because love is complicated.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is. But it adds to that shared knowledge, it adds to that shared meaning that you get from another person, and it just makes your relationship much stronger. Right. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So, what I'm getting out of this is one, we need to still make friends in college.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And we can do that through Club Rush or through uh talking to people in classes. Right. Yes. So we've got to make friends, and then there's expectations in those relationships. We've got to talk through those. Communication is the special sauce or whatever that art is. Special sauce. And then also bottle it up. And then also we need to understand in in segment three, we we need to understand how we communicate love and how we feel or view love. Um, and we can do that through a lot of self-assessments and again talking to our partners.
SPEAKER_00And again, it's about understanding yourself so that you can have stronger relationships.
SPEAKER_01Right, because they're worth it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. All right, we will see you next month on Ed. This has been Ed, a frank discussion about topics that matter in education. The views expressed in this episode are those of the host, co-host, and any guests. They do not reflect the views or values of Lone Star College. For further information about Ed, please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com. Next month on Ed, a discussion on resumes and job interviews. Ed was produced by Andy Luster and Twila Coy, music provided by Laborio Contigo.
