Love the Way You Love

On my way to work yesterday I found myself singing, “If you can’t be with the on you love, love the one you’re with.” I remember this from the 60’s with the free love theme that was part of that era. While there are so many dangers with such a thought, there is a great deal of truth to it. I want to talk a bit about how we need to “love the way you love” more than just love the one you’re with.

It is interesting that my first patient was a person with a primary temperament of what we call “lover.” Readers of this blog might want to check out a series of blogs I did with the system of temperament analysis, or you might pick up a copy of our book, What’s Your Temperament, that we published a couple of years ago in which we described the characteristics of lovers, caretakers, analysts and players. I have had the privilege of knowing Jack for nearly 10 years and watch him move from being a good man to being a great man, a process that continues with everyone I see in my office: good to great. A good deal of my discussion with Jack yesterday was in and around his concern that he might be a charlatan of some sort or that his love for people was “shallow.” Asked why he thought why his love might be shallow, he said that he could seemingly love someone in the moment, minute, or hour, and then almost forget about the person entirely within another few minutes or hours. Jack mentioned how he felt about the personal loss that he had suffered a few years ago noting that he didn’t feel sad about this loss anymore. He thought this was callous or “shallow”. This led to a discussion of what it means to be a lover who might just truly “love the one you’re with.”

The more we talked, the more it became obvious that Jack’s presenting “problem” for the day was not so much that his love was shallow or callous but that it was typical of “lover” people. As we talked about his capacity to love and how much he loved, I felt myself quite moved emotionally. “Emotional movement” is essentially feeling tearful, and tears of this sort are some combination of sadness and joy. As I mused about it to myself, I realized that I truly loved Jack and that he truly loved me. He was also emotional as well as he felt the same. After a few minutes this emotional movement changed and I no longer felt tearful. What had happened? Jak and I had “loved the one you’re with” for a few minutes and then that love was finished, at least for the moment. As the session ended and we parted, we hugged, which is part of the drill with Jack, and I said, “Now go out and love the one you’re with, which might be the cashier at the Kwik Trip or your wife when you get home.”

This whole matter of loving the one you’re with got me thinking about what I consider to be the larger matter of how people love different things and love in different ways. I want to suggest that you, the reader, might want to consider how you love, and perhaps when and where you love. We all love differently.

Different love styles by means of temperament

Allow me to quickly note that “temperament analysis” has been around in various forms for centuries beginning with the philosopher Galen who talked of four temperaments using his own terms. Likewise, there have been other systems of temperament analysis or personality analysis including personality type and the enneagram. More recently, a book proposed a system of 5 love languages.” I will proceed with the temperament system we have developed and used for the past 50 years: lover, player, analyst, and caretaker. We grant that no one is perfectly any of these things and that often they have two predominant temperament styles and some elements of all the temperaments. Granting these limitations, consider how we understand that some people love:

Lovers

Lovers look for personal connection. This means that their style of love is to find, forge, and magnify connections with people. This “connection” takes many forms including simple yet contact, possibly accompanied with a wink or a nod; talking; hugging, listening. In all these forms of connection the lover feels spiritually connected. There are many other distinctive things about lovers, but the core of their nature is this business of connection. We could say that they love people, perhaps more than people of other persuasions of personality, but this might not be quite accurate. Indeed, their style of love has to do with people, but this loving people is very much physical and to some degree verbal. They simply “feel” the connection with people, or perhaps they don’t actually feel a connection, which might actually lead them to leave the person. There is much more I could say about lovers, but let’s leave it at this: lovers love by connecting with people.

Caretakers

Very often, there is a combination of temperaments as noted. This is particularly true with caretakers because they can be lover-caretakers or any other combination. Furthermore, many people engage in caretaking behavior, often to an extreme, but they may not actually be caretakers by nature. The way caretakers love has a lot to do with responsibility in general and property in specific. What do caretakers love? How do they love? They love taking care of things, and often, although not always, they love to take care of people. Taking care of things is a true love for almost all caretakers. They see things, whether human-made or nature-made, as intrinsically good and in need of love. Consider whether you or someone you know spends what seems like an inordinate amount of time taking care of property. This could take the form of washing her care carefully, always putting away dishes after the dishwasher if finished washing, painting, cleaning, or improving. This love of property can seem to non-caretakers as materialistic, but such is not generally the case. Caretakers can be quite generous with their property. Likewise, they can care for other people’s property, even if they don’t know the person,

Analysts

Analysts exist, as we understand them, to improve the world. Thus, they want to fix things, repair things, and such, but they also want to fix and repair people. The primary way analysts look at the world is through the lens of how things, or perhaps people, could be improved. This makes them problem-centered, whether the problem is with property, people, or the national economy. Their problem-centeredness makes them want to prevent problems, and usually more so, solve problems. The best of love analysts have can be displayed in how the IT specialist enjoys loving a computer and making it work better. Other analysts might be major economists who want to make the national economy work better, or on a smaller scale, perhaps want the household income and expenses balance property. Analysts are often right about what people could do to improve their lives as they have a knack of seeing what is wrong, or perhaps just not working efficiently.

Players

Players love experience…any kind of experience although their usual preference is for physical experience. Additionally, they can really enjoy a good discussion, whether frivolous or profound a good party, a good bike ride, good sex, or anything that is physical in nature where they can ideally put their whole body into the activity. Many players end up to be professional athletes, while others find music something that they can fully engage or perhaps drama where they can be physically, intellectually, and emotionally in tune with a character when they are on the stage. Players look for fun and are fun to be with largely because of the adventuresome spirit that often accompanies their passion for experience. They can become quite proficient at a player-based profession, like music, art, sports, or drama or they can be a person who does everything but is “a master of none” of what they do.

Other ways of loving

Personality factors or job factors may be ways of “loving the way you love”:

• Introverts. They love quality, perception, and privacy
• Extraverts. They love quantity, engagement, and publicity
• Artists of all kinds who love a specific art form or perhaps many art forms
• Tradesmen who love their trade, whether it is finishing concrete or setting a door

We could also look at how people of various ages love the way they love:

• Infants love to smile
• Toddlers love to explore
• Children love to play
• Adolescents love to learn

Consider that love is not exclusive to anyone, any temperament, any gender, any culture kor subculture, and any age. Love comes in a variety of forms and is always good. Love is never wrong. But love can be problematic, both in the giving and in the receiving, and even more so in the perception of how someone loves.

The challenges of loving the way you love

Again, love is never wrong. I have been reading Thomas Acquinas recently. Thomas says that nothing is ever intended for evil as all intentions are based on love. Think about that, especially as you look at what you love and how you love in comparison to how other people love. There are several factors where love can be problematic, however pure and godly it is at its origin.

Loving to a fault.

I love the expression “to a fault” because it suggests that anything good, including love, if it is done too much, in the wrong setting, or without an understanding of the people around you, it can be love to a fault. Some people are “generous to a fault,” which means they always have to pick up the bill at dinner, while others are playful to a fault, which means they are good at playing, that they play all the time thus neglecting work, thinking, and relationships. Any of the temperaments we discussed can love to a fault:

• Players experience so much that they damage their bodies or damage other people
• Analysts can be so problem-centered that they sound critical all the time
• Caretakers can spend so much time taking care of property that they are exhausted and irritable
• Lovers can love people in ways that they don’t want to be love, perhaps hugging, touching, or just listening

While love is the “greatest of gifts” as the Apostle Paul said, this matter of love is always godly and good as well as being multi-faceted. Not all people are lovers, much to the distress of lovers. The same could be said of the other temperaments. So what?

Love the way you love…and…

Know that no one loves exactly the way you love

Whether you love people, property, truth, God or anything else, this love is good in its origin but not always good in its effect.

Take care in how you see other people, especially in the way you love. I admire musicians’ talent for music and truly envy such things largely because I have so little musical talent.

Get better at how you love the way you love.

Perhaps, add to your love toolbox other ways of loving. You might have to learn from someone who loves very differently than you do.