I’m sorry, guys, I usually don’t write meta, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this and had to get it out of my head?
So I’m sure many of you have heard about The Five Love Languages book by Gary Chapman, especially since it’s been around for years and years.
To quickly summarize, the author theorizes that there are five types of ‘love languages’, which are methods that people use to express their love and affection. The five love languages are:
Words of affirmation (compliments, saying ‘I love you’, telling someone how much they mean to you, etc.)
Physical touch (touches of affection, anything from kissing to hugging to cuddling to just hand-holding, etc.)
Gift giving (giving tangible gifts, giving physical reminders of how much someone means to you, giving gifts that show you were thinking of them, etc.)
Acts of service (doing things/ services/ acts/ chores for someone, taking care of them, lending a hand or helping out, etc.)
Quality time (spending time with someone, giving them your undivided attention, having special ‘date nights’ or time with just the two of you, etc).
The author believes that most people tend to show love in the same way they prefer to receive love (ex: a person who likes to give gifts would be happiest to receive a gift in return), but I don’t necessarily agree with that. Based on everything I’ve seen and also personal experiences, I tend to think that most people have TWO love languages: the way they show their affection, and the way they want to receive affection.
Now again, all of this is theorized and not empirically studied in any way, so you can decide whether or not to buy into this. :) It may have some truth to it, it may not! But, regardless, it did get me thinking about my Supernatural boys and wondering: which of these love languages fit Dean Winchester?
What are Dean’s love languages?
Okay, right off the bat, I’m gonna go on record and say no, nope, noooooope. Dean is definitely NOT a ‘whisper sweet nothings’ kind of guy. It took us 12 seasons to finally get a canon ‘I love you’ out of him, and that was to his mom. In a dream. And she couldn’t even explicitly hear him at the time.
Now, that’s not to say Dean never says words of affirmation, because sometimes he does. But it’s usually in a tense life-or-death moment, or a someone-just-came-back moment, or a someone-is-brainwashed moment, or some other type of emotionally tense scene, you get the picture. Even then, I don’t think Dean says these things to show his affection. It’s more like he just… says them honestly, because they’re true? Almost like, to him, these are ‘duh’ type statements. Why make a big deal when he’s only stating the truth?
So yeah, Dean isn’t the type of person to show he cares through words. And not only that, he’s also very uncomfortable when anyone else does the same thing for him. Anytime Dean receives a compliment or someone says something affectionate, he tends to scoff, laugh it off, or ignore it.
And God forbid someone actually says they love him.
*crickets* *crickets* Awkward…
A good case could probably be argued for this one, because Dean is actually a pretty touchy-feely guy. He hugs, he gives cutesy forehead kisses to women, he puts his arms around shoulders, he touches faces.
However, I recently read a great post by @thejabberwock about tactile!Dean, and I think this explains it much better, so I’m not gonna go in-depth on this one. :) Basically, I would just agree that Dean is just a tactile guy in general, in all areas of his life, and it’s not necessarily how he prefers to show or receive affection.
Plus, when he’s the receiver of physical affection and doesn’t actually initiate it himself, it’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do.
There’s only a few occasions where we’ve seen Dean give or receive gifts, and they’re pretty few and far between. In general, I think this is probably part of the hunting lifestyle - there’s just no need and/ or room for material possessions that don’t serve a purpose.
One of the few scenes where we do see gifts exchanged is when Dean stole some Christmas presents for Sam and then received the amulet in return.
However, I’d argue this scene shows that Dean DOESN’T use gift-giving as one of his love languages. For people who truly use gift-giving as a love language, there’s a lot of time and thought spent in picking the perfect gifts for someone. Instead, Dean just randomly takes whatever is under the tree, regardless of what it is. Even the amulet, which becomes so important to him, isn’t necessarily important because it’s a gift, but because it came specifically from Sam.
In this situation, it’s really not about the gifts at all - it’s about Dean trying to give Sam that ‘classic Christmas’ experience. I would argue that Dean is actually performing an ‘act of service’ for Sam here, while at the same time spending ‘quality time’ together, which leads me into the next two love languages…
P.S. I am purposefully NOT including the recent mixtape from 12.19 as an example of Dean being a gift giver, because in my opinion, it’s also an example of ‘quality time’ instead. Here’s my post explaining why I think so.
This one, in my opinion, is DEFINITELY Dean’s love language for showing affection.
Taking care of the people he cares about, doing things for them, and putting them first is just a huge part of who he is. He’s been taking care of others since he was four years old carrying Sammy out of their burning home. Actually, scratch that - he was taking care of others even BEFORE that, when he was comforting his mom after his dad moved out.
There are literally so many examples of him taking care of others. He cooked for Sammy when they were kids/ still cooks for him now. He raked leaves at Lisa’s. He offers Castiel coffee in the mornings. He fixes things.
So, I would say that performing acts of service is definitely the way that Dean shows his love. Dean loves others by doing things for them. To Dean, actions speak the loudest. And after all, this love language is perfect for him: no awkward words or confessions necessary, no ‘chick-flick moments’, most of the time he still gets to be tactile and active and use his hands, and it’s subtle enough that he can always defensively play it off as just being helpful if he gets called out.
Alternatively, while Dean shows his love through acts of service, he certainly does not want to receive love through acts of service.
Taking care of others is role that Dean knows well and he’s good at it. It rubs him the wrong way when other people try to take that role from him, or try to take care of him for a change. He enjoys doing things for others, but isn’t so hot on letting other people do things for him.
In my opinion, this is definitely Dean’s other love language, his love language for how he wants to be shown love.
Dean has a long history of abandonment issues, so it’s not surprising that quality time ends up being one of the most important things to him. We see this immediately in the very first episode, when Dean shows up to get Sam from college after ‘Dad hasn’t been home for a few days’. But why now? Sam’s been at college for four years. There’s been plenty of hunts in the meantime, John’s probably been on plenty of solo hunts. But as soon as he’s gone longer than usual and Dean isn’t able to reach him, he tracks down Sam. And through the rest of the season, even though Dean is worried about John being missing, it’s also evident that he’s hurt by it.
Dean does not do well alone. He needs the people he loves to be there with him. Hell, he even admits it himself:
So yeah, literally nothing else is as important to Dean as having his loved ones with him. Even if they’re not doing anything, even if they’re just watching crappy TV or drinking beer or driving in the Impala, he just needs them to be there.
And when they leave or don’t want to spend time with him, it hurts him. We saw a lot of it recently, especially in season 12. Even though things were awkward with Mary at the beginning, he was hurt when she decided to leave the bunker. When Cas went MIA and didn’t answer his phone, he was upset not about why Cas was gone, just that Cas was gone.
That’s also why it’s such a huge deal to him to be accused of leaving - because, in his eyes, being left behind by someone he loves is the worst thing imaginable.
So yeah, I would argue that the best way to show love and affection to Dean Winchester is to just hang out with him, be with him, spend time with him - even if you’re not doing anything important, quality time means the world to Dean.
Also as I mentioned above, I also believe that the mixtape from 12.19 is a perfect example of Dean needing quality time, instead of gift giving, and here’s why (this explanation got kinda long and needed its own post, lol).
Acts of Service and Quality Time are Dean’s two love languages.
Performing acts of service is how Dean shows love to those he cares about. Basically, if Dean cares about you, he’ll show it by doing things for you, taking care of you, etc.
Spending quality time together is how Dean wants love from those he cares about. Basically, if you care about Dean, you should show it by spending time with him.
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