Shortly after Gwen Stefani’s song Cool came out, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Back in the era of teenagers expressing their angst via AIM profile status (you know you did), my 16-year-old self shared what I thought was as super deep way to describe incompatibility: “And I’ll be happy for you, If you’ll be happy for me. Circles and triangles.”
“That’s a stupid quote,” my online non-boyfriend abruptly wrote, clearly not understanding that my AIM profile is where I hid veiled messages about the status of our non-relationship. “What does it even mean?”
Since those days of online yore, I’ve occasionally found myself trying to fit circles into triangles, but mostly I’ve learned that it’s not all so clear cut. Pardon the continued metaphor, but there’s a crazy amount of shapes out there, and no shape fits another one (nor, completes another one) perfectly.
Dr. Gary Chapman, the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages, has spent his professional life uncovering ways people can avoid such relationship friction, by identifying the main ways people feel or receive love (words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, acts of service, and quality time). He has quite the following. His book is the ninth most sold book on Amazon (ever), and with five stars and 11K+ reviews to boot, it’s clear that his methods are working, rejuvenating relationships across the globe. Even then, as Chapman shares with us, it’s clear certain personalities are more innately compatible, while others might be “an uphill battle.”
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