Looking to the Elements

Since Valentine's Day weekend is approaching, I'm sure we're all being inundated with media reminders and cultural conditioning. What our behaviors should be, how we should treat our lovers, where we should take them, what we should buy them. After a while it's easy to tune it all out.

One thing that caught my attention was this quiz, which comes from a book called Elemental Love Styles by Craig Martin. In it, Martin asserts that we can't know what sort of relationship we have until we know what sort of lovers we are. He represents love styles with the elements: fire, water, earth, air.

After taking the quiz (which, like many personality quizzes, is difficult to answer because more than one answer could be true of me), I was told that I am WATER.

"You are finished!

You are undoubtedly Water.

Your element is Water: You are imaginative, dreamy, artistic, and highly intuitive.

Famous Waters: Cinderella, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

You love: following your moods wherever they lead.

You crave: validation and protection.

If you're single: Find someone who appreciates your sensitivity. Don't waste time with anyone who shrugs off your emotions as craziness.

If you're in a relationship: You know what your partner wants before he or she even asks. Don't overwhelm your mate when you feel worried or anxious.

Sex is: both emotional ecstasy and sensory pleasure.

If you love a Water: Give her imagination free rein. She wants to be understood, so listen."

While I admire the element of water, I found that few of these statements actually applied to me, other than that I do get anxious when I'm worried, and I do (like everyone, I assume) want to be understood.

Still, it's fun to take a quiz like this because it focuses one on the inner self for a short amount of time.

So go ahead--take the advice of Martha Stewart's better living blog and determine your elemental love style--then share it with us, and with your significant other.

Have a great Valentine's Day!