Love is complicated. Females in the Xavier community were able to expand their knowledge on the language of love. On January 19 and 20, many Xavier girls attended the school’s annual Girls Retreat. The retreat was held at St. Pius X for junior and senior girls this Thursday and freshman and sophomore girls this Friday. “It’s nice to get away from school and focus on being with a bunch of girls, which is really fun,” guidance counselor Mrs. Danie Clancy said. “We try and pick topics that are really important to cover in high school girls’ lives.” The Girls Retreat has been present at Xavier since Mrs. Beth Globokar was serving as Associate Principal in 2011. The retreat has covered a wide range of topics, but this year, faculty chose to tackle the five love languages. The five love languages were created by Dr. Gary Chapman in his book, The Five Love Languages of Teenagers. The five love languages discussed in the book are words of affirmation, acts of service, touch, receiving gifts, and quality time. The retreat began with an explanation of all five love languages. Next, the girls were given the opportunity to take a quiz and discover what love language they respond to best. The quiz is thirty questions long and can also be found online. By finding out which love language each individual girl responds to, the girls were given the opportunity to understand not only themselves, but also their peers better. The retreat continued with talks from female teachers such as Mrs. Clancy, Mrs. Erica Ireland, Mrs. Tracie Marshall, Ms. Jenny Murtha, Mrs. Kris Naeve and Mrs. Sara Whitt. Each talk was aimed at teaching the girls how the love languages affect different relationships in life. “We’re diving into relationship issues here, which can be a hard subject to tackle,” Mrs. Marshall said. Everyone’s love language is different, and communicating across the different languages can make having relationships difficult. The Girls Retreat was aimed at giving girls the tools they need to have happier, healthier relationships. “Our purpose is for girls to come together to learn skills and have conversations about how to lift each other and lift themselves up,” Mrs. Clancy said. Even though five languages are possible, Xavier’s female teachers are empowering the retreat participants to be bilingual.