A Sunday Night Chat

"Is there, like, a leak in your love tank?"

My husband, Jared, and I recently read "The Five Love Languages: How to Express Hearfelt Commitment to your Mate." For those unfamiliar with the tenets of its philosophy, it analogizes that everybody has a "love tank." Our job as a romantic partner is to learn how our mate best feels loved, and become proficient enough in that "language" to be able to keep their love tank full, which keeps them happy. Once you know your "languages," the book suggests that you check in with each other at night and ask, "on a scale of 1-10 how full is your love tank today?"

"A leak?" I respond. We're lying on the couch together. His goal tonight is to "dote" on me, and he's doing his best to follow my very specific instructions (I wrote a song about that, by the way. I should post the lyrics sometime).

"Yeah," He explains. "Not like the regular diminishing of the love tank. I mean a steady stream of it just... being gone. Like, I keep putting love in your tank and... like, is there love in there that doesn't ever get used? That just... gets wasted?"

I furrow my brow. "No, I don't have a leak," I say, formulating my defense. "I just... I have a lot of love-needs. I use a lot of resources. I'm a high consumer of love because I have so much going on." Yeah, that's it, I'm thinking. "Your love doesn't go to waste, I use it all."

"So... you just get really bad love-mileage. You're like the SUV of love vehicles." We laugh. "My little love-SUV," he croons. mmm. We lay cheek to cheek on the couch, me in misty-eyed contentment and bliss.

"So...[pause]... can I trade you in for a hybrid sometime? .... ow! ow! I was kidding! I was KIDDING!!"

This was our conversation tonight. I think we're making progress.