Love Languages 2.0
By: Stefania Tibor
Sex and Love Columnist for The Stories We Need to Hear Media
A digression into the love languages and what they mean in your romantic and platonic lives.
About a year ago, I wrote about how love languages can act as a cheat code when it comes to important moments–like Valentine’s Day. While love languages can serve as a fast track into the heart and emotion of your partner, your love languages can do so much more than benefit your relationship.
To recap, love languages are both the way(s) that you show love, as well as how someone can make you feel loved. The five love languages are: physical touch, quality time, gift giving, acts of service, and words of affirmation. We can have multiple number 1’s and multiple aversions. So, what do each of these mean?
Physical Touch
While this seems to be self explanatory, there’s a little more depth to physical touch. First and foremost, physical touch can manifest through hugs, kisses, hand holding, and so on. I’d like to think each of the love languages are the way we express the moments of butterflies and overwhelming joy for the person you’re with. To me, it feels like an innate way to show gratitude and happiness.
But as we go further, we realize just how subtle these moments are. Think of the friend that holds your hand when you’re sobbing–regardless of what it’s about. Someone can express love through touch in many ways; these ways can also be intersections of other love languages. For example, wiping food off your partner’s face can be intimacy shown through physical touch, with a dash of acts of service.
On the flipside, love languages are a two way street. Having a proficiency of the love languages that apply to the people close to you is a step you can take to make sure your feelings are clear to the other person. A physical touch love language would appreciate things like holding their hand or giving them a hug when they come home or feel immense stress.
For some adults, the parent that didn’t hug them has perpetuated a lot of their emotional distress and intimacy issues. In this sense, I would assume that they’ve been a physical touch person–but what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the lack thereof cause someone to grow into seeking physical touch, or do they just happen to be born and wired as a physical touch person?
Quality Time
Out of every love language, I feel this one is the most sensitive. While the others seem to be pretty straight forward, this one seems to get the most confused. At first glance, one might assume that quality time means less days spent texting and more days spent in person. While this is true, the “quality” aspect of it seems to get lost in translation in many pairings.
To one person in the relationship, quality time (whether it is a love language they’ve adopted to support their partner or it’s a big one for themselves) can mean sitting in the same room together. Having that access to them that they’re willing to give you can give you all of the love and affirmation you can ask for.
However, for others, this can be puzzling. Two people can both give and receive love through quality time and still have issues feeling unloved. Person A just needs you in the room, but Person B might feel neglected until you put your phone down and really engage in each other’s company.
Love languages are among a plethora of factors in relationships; Person A could be an introverted partner, requiring quiet, personal time to unwind. In this situation, Person A is showing you love via quality time because they’re letting you be a silent partner in their me-time. On the flipside, Person B can be an extrovert who’s been waiting to see their person all day. In this sense, they may subconsciously expect love by making the most of their time together.
So maybe that’s why your sister is trying to get drinks with you constantly and hates it when you’re constantly on your phone. And that friend that hates when you don’t want to go out or cancel late takes it so hard because you wanting to see them is what makes them sure you love them and value the relationship you two have built.
You can also make compromises; if you’re only thinking of staying home because you’re tired, maybe grab a Redbull and pull through. If you really need this time to yourself, you can still do that; in this case, communicate not only that part to them, but remind them that you love spending time with them and rescheduling is important to you. Love languages aren’t rules for loving someone. Rather, love languages allow you to make grand gestures really heartfelt and troubleshooting really supportive and reassuring.
Acts of Service
Acts of service and gifts can typically intertwine, both in execution, and the wrap they get. At first glance, a lot of people assume both of those love languages are materialistic, “princess behavior.” Extremes and negative derivations can come from anything; in the same breath, positive adaptations and depictions of things can exist as well.
Feeling love through acts of service doesn’t have to mean you expect your partner to be at your every beck and call. You don’t want them to feed you grapes on Egyptian cotton linens, you want them to notice the things that are stressing you out and help. These individuals see these acts not as subservience, but rather, as a relief that you feel like you don’t have to endure life on your own.
My top love languages are quality time and physical touch; I consider them my top because they’re all I need to feel fulfillment in my relationship and they’re my most natural go-to expressions. But my current relationship shook things up and made me realize that all of the love languages can be part of your partnership.
Being that I’m an Italian woman and I was raised by a single mother, acts of service are actually one of the ways I show love. So I do the laundry for my mom without asking or I cook for my boyfriend and his friends on Sundays. I do it just because I want to, and not only do I not expect anything in return, I would hate it if I made someone feel the need to repay me.
I of course have always appreciated the gestures that are considered acts of service. However, whenever I would think about what someone can do to make me feel loved, acts of service naturally stayed out of my head. My boyfriend put a lot of this into perspective for me.
One night while I was cooking, I was working on about 3 different things. I’ve grown up cooking, so multitasking is far from overwhelming–it’s in my nature. Being that I’m an acts of service “shower,” I never ask for help. But when my boyfriend asks if I need help, I don’t mind asking him to mince the garlic since chopping isn’t really my ADHD brain’s cup of tea.
I always appreciated his help; it made me realize how much cooking dinner meant to him. But this night made me realize that I, too, feel loved when someone does those little things. That night, that little thing was him automatically grabbing the cutting board and a head of garlic. He didn’t ask me how he could help, instead, he asked me “How many cloves do you need?”
I feel reassured and loved in our relationship when we spend time together and he shows me physical touch through a hand hold or a hug when I get home. I feel like his love is reinforced when he offers to help me with things or automatically does things for me. For some of us, love expression and reception is either innate or not really a thought. For others like myself, love expression and reception is a pie chart of all 5 parts to some degree playing a part in our relationship.
Gift Giving
A gift can show love in many different ways. The grand gesture of extravagance can actually be a way to express and receive love in a non-financial way. For some people, money does buy love. But for others, receiving a gift can make someone feel love because you did something for the sole purpose of making them happy.
I always thought gifts were an ick for me; but once again, my boyfriend changed that. Ted Lasso was one of my favorite bing phases we had. The feel good show kept us so entertained and gave us so many jokes to reference and scenes to recount. It even served as inspiration for sweet surprises.
One day, we watched an episode where Ted and Coach Beard had lunch plans: every Friday they made each other “surprise sandwiches.” Instead of bringing lunch for themselves, they would bring a homemade sandwich for the other person. The day after we watched that episode, I got a text from my boyfriend that said, “Come over whenever you get hungry. In true Ted fashion, I got you a surprise sandwich ;).”
I felt so much love from that gift (and act of service). Not only was it sweet in itself, the backstory makes it even cuter. A week prior, we were grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s; it was a quick trip for dinner ingredients. When I went to pick up a hummus wrap, I told him the other vegan option (a lentil wrap) looked good, but that I never tried it because I didn’t want to regret not getting the hummus wrap. When I passed any other vegan favorites of mine, I’d point them out and tell him the TLDR on how I found them.
At lunchtime, he gave me my surprise sandwich: a Trader Joe’s lentil wrap. At dinnertime, he pulled out almost all of the foods I pointed out during that trip. While we cooked, I saw the hummus wrap he bought as a backup in case the lentil wrap wasn’t a hit (it was).
I felt love not because he spent money on me, but because he went out of his way to get me things he knew I liked and wanted. And he did it just because.
Words of Affirmation
Some people are “actions speak louder than words” types, like myself. Others feel words make your feelings clear as day. Sometimes, we don’t want to infer if the above things are out of love, we want to be told straight up. But this doesn’t stop at mushy comments and “I love you” over and over.
Words of affirmation plays a big role in things like texting. Some people (like quality time folks) such as myself want to sit down and tell each other everything that happened that day or week. Others want to talk to you about it as soon as they can. They get excited to tell you about the puppy in the office because you’re the first person they think of. They want you to want to know how their day is going.
In terms of verbiage, this can range from “I love you” to verbally giving them encouragement when work gets tough or when their self esteem is taking a dip. My words of affirmation leaning mom wanted to know that I got asked to homecoming as soon as it happened. My quality time-learning self wanted to tell her when I got home so I could share my excitement and all of the details in person.
This is why your mom doesn’t want a candle for Christmas, she wants a meaningful card that she knows you poured your heart in. Sometimes, needing to hear this constantly can be a sign of insecurity. But this is not always the case by any means. Think of words of affirmation as the moments that something so amazing happens, you’re overjoyed and want to shout it from the rooftops a million times. That rush of happiness that someone gets can also manifest in the happiness they feel towards you. So while you snuggle them all throughout the night, they want to tell you every other second that they absolutely adore you.
Recap
Love languages are notably tough because they deal with your natural reactions and self expressions. I’m constantly recommending implementing love language awareness in relationships because it’s really hard to realize that on your own. When you don’t feel loved in a reciprocal relationship, it’s because the method isn’t what speaks to your heart. But when you don’t think to analyze how you both show each other love, you’re left questioning the other person’s love for you and if it even exists.
Sometimes love isn’t there or someone you love is selfish, but it doesn’t hurt to give love languages a shot when troubleshooting. Maybe your dad didn’t hug you because he doesn’t like physical affection, but he texts you throughout the day and calls you when you’re at college because that’s how his heart speaks.
So, how does your heart speak, and what does it hear?
