1. In my current relationship with my boyfriend Frank, we both are on the same page when it
comes to intimacy and love in our relationship. I will be analyzing the styles of loving and
relational dialects as it pertains to my relationship with him.
The style of loving encompass a variety of ways in which you and your partner can love each
other. Ludus is a type of love that we both possess; defined as a type of love that involves
entertaining and exciting games. We both love to keep things interesting, we play games with
each other all the time and we constantly entertain one another. I think ludus is the type of love
that keeps couples on their toes and requires them to have new and uncomfortable experiences.
Pragma is a love that is practical and that meets specific needs. Both Frank and I agree that
exemplifies this type of love more than I do. He is extremely practical and really looks into
things long before he makes any decision about it, which is why we didn’t date for so long. He
wanted to make sure we would work before jumping into a relationship and ruining our
friendship. Storge is a love that is rooted in peace and friendship. This one describes us the best
because we have been friends for so many years. We have loved each other long before we ever
were in a relationship, which makes our love life so much more fun, relaxed, and easy because
we both know each other so well. Agape love is one that is compassionate and selfless. Agape is
a love that we both partake in now that we have began dating. Before our relationship began, all
of these other love styles existed, but we continued to be ultimately selfish because there was no
reason to not be. Now that we are in a relationship, we have become more compassionate and
selfless. Looking at these love styles compared to my relationship, it really hits close to home.
We have engaged in all six of the love styles at some point in our relationship, and although
some more so than others all of them played a role in getting us to where we are now. I think
there are only pros to agape and storge because they are the two types of love that are going to
determine whether or not your relationship will last. Eros, mania, ludus, and pragma all have
pros and cons because while it is great to love someone in any of those categories, they can all be
taken too far which can be detrimental to the relationship. The qualities I have discovered
looking at my relationship through these love styles will only enhance my interpersonal
communication with Frank, because I am now more aware of which love style I am portraying
which will benefit my ability to reason on whether or not it is appropriate.
The relational dialects offered immense insight into my relationship as well. We struggle with
these dialects more internally than externally. Internally, openness versus privacy has been one of
the biggest things we have had to work on in our relationship. I am a wildly open person and he
is insanely private. It is definitely something we still are working on but it has come so far since
the incubus of our relationship. Externally we are both open about our relationship now that we
have been dating for nearly six months, but in its preliminary stage I was more open about it than
he was. Novelty versus predictability is also a strange dialect for the two of us. Because of our
history together, it is almost hard to not know what he is going to do next. We both are very
analytical which makes it difficult for us to ever be mystified or intrigued by each other. With
that being said, because we both know this we work hard to keep surprises a secret from one
another because we love the idea of having that mystery in our relationship. Externally, it is
pretty well known by all of our friends that we have a special, unique relationship. We both knew
from the get go that our relationship would never be normal or usual, and we love it like that.
Autonomy versus connection is the dialect that we struggle with the most. We both independent,
which makes it difficult for us to maintain that close, interdependent bond. We both have a large

2. sense of pride, which makes it harder to stray from that independent mindset, but as time has
passed we have both made an effort to include the other person in our successes as well as our
struggles. Externally, we both really like to spend time away from others. We love to travel over
the weekends and go out and do things just the two of us, because we both excite each other so
much. I think there are pros and cons to all three of these dialects, because it is important to have
a balance in your relationship. If you are on one side of the dialect while your partner is on the
other then your relationship is never going to succeed. The qualities I have discovered in
analyzing these relational dialect will affect my interpersonal communication with Frank
positively. Post-analysis, I can see how he might become frustrated with my openness and can
now see why these relational dialects exist, because I think they are prevalent to every
relationship.