All the Ways That Love Takes Form

Love languages are the ways in which we give and receive love and affection. They are the gestures through which we communicate to someone that we care about and value them. They are also the things that make us feel loved, appreciated and valued by them in return. You can think of your love language as your personal definition of love.

When it comes to our relationships, speaking and being spoken to in our love languages brings us tremendous pleasure, joy and satisfaction. And consequently, when our love languages are not spoken or understood by the people we love, we tend to experience pain, resentment and all kinds of other not-fun emotions.

That is why it helps to understand how love takes physical form for you compared to other people.

Of course, the number of ways to express love is limited to the expansive imaginations of everyone who has ever been and ever will be alive. But though we are incredibly complex as a species, we’re not as unlimited as we would like to be. Our personality traits, needs and behaviours may be diverse but they are also finite, and they tend to follow fairly predictable patterns.

So, if we take all the specific ways that we could possibly communicate love and zoom all the way out, we see that they tend to fall into five broad categories that Dr. Gary Chapman calls “the five love languages.”

They are Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Quality Time, Acts of Service and Gifts.

In this article, I will give you an overview of the five love languages, and then we will deep dive into each one with all its accents, dialects and intricacies in the coming posts.

Words of Affirmation

Words of affirmation is perhaps the most straightforward love language. It communicates love and affection verbally.

Compliments, praises, encouragement, love notes, greeting cards, text messages, love letters, verbal acknowledgment and appreciation, toasts, speeches, comments on posts, and even pleases and thank yous all fall into this category.

The purpose of words of affirmation is to take the guesswork out of emotion, but also to put our most effective means of communication to its highest use — to let a loved know exactly what they mean to you.

For those who don’t speak this love language, turning feelings into words and then saying them out loud can be kind of embarrassing, if not, excruciating. But native speakers make it look easy. They derive a great deal of pleasure from expressing themselves to others through language. And they can get really creative with it.

We’ve all heard the expression “Men love with their eyes; women with their ears.” But really, its words of affirmation natives who love with their ears. And so, they also like to hear that they are loved, appreciated and that they are doing a good job because the experience doesn’t feel as real, as certain or as significant without positive verbal affirmation.

They know that words have power, and they would rather use theirs to light up your day by seeing the best in you and pointing it out. In a world that is guarded against vulnerability, those who wear their hearts on their lips are a refreshing, if not somewhat jarring, breath of fresh air.

Physical Touch

Physical touch is the next most obvious way to express love. It is also the one that is most likely to get you into trouble in many cultures around the world. But there is a huge difference between affectionate touch and invasive touch. The love language refers to the former.

Despite the taboos and social norms around it, physical touch is a vital human need. Countless studies have shown, that when newborn babies were not held affectionately, they often died even though all their other basic needs were being met.

Physical touch plays a key role in child development. It causes the brain to release oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine. These are known as the “feel-good” chemicals that have a positive impact on our health and well-being.

Native speakers of this love language are highly attuned to the need for physical touch and its benefits. For them, a single touch can communicate more than words ever could because it literally closes the distance between two people.

Hugs, kisses, cuddles, spooning, rough-and-tumble play, holding hands, linking arms, playing footsie, tickling, light touches, massages, playing with hair, biting, putting your arms around their waist or shoulder, and pats on the back all fall under the umbrella of this love language.

Similar to people who value words, people who value touch find it relatively easy to reach out and touch someone on the arm, for instance, when they want to comfort, reassure, or simply connect. They have no problem greeting you with a hug or a kiss on the cheek and are often quick to envelop you in a big ol’ bear hug any time they get the chance.

This is because people who speak the language of physical touch don’t just want the idea of love, support and presence, they want to feel it on their bodies.

Quality Time

Time is perhaps the most valuable resource. And for those whose native love language is quality time, there can be no greater expression of love than to give someone your time and attention. If touch connects us physically, quality time connects us energetically because the defining feature of this love language is presence.

For some, this means physical presence – to share a space with each other while engaging in mutual activities. For others, it can be a shared experience like working on a project together. And for many, it’s the kinds of conversations that allow you to really get to know someone on a deeper level. The ones that nourish your soul and make you feel seen and heard.

Quality time is one of the harder love languages to classify because the meaning of “quality” varies from person to person, depending on their values, interests and personalities. Some people would characterize an intimate conversation over text message as quality time. Others would consider it shared activities like watching movies, playing sports or going out to a restaurant together.

With quality time, it is not the activity itself but the engagement and attunement to one another that brings you closer together that makes it valuable. Many people consider being in the same room together while each does their own thing time well spent.

But for native quality timers, the highest expression of love is to give someone your undivided attention. So, unless you are talking to them on the phone, they will want the phones away.

Basically, to express love through quality time means to enter into someone’s world and invite them into your own.

Acts of Service

Acts of service is about showing love through action. For native speakers of this love language, love is not about what you say but what you do. By taking care of another person, by doing things for them, helping them out, meeting their needs in practical ways, they express how much they care.

People who show love through acts of service take pleasure in making someone’s life a little bit easier by taking some of the weight off their shoulders. And those who receive love in this language like it when people help them out with the daily tasks of life as well.

Things like doing chores and running errands, helping them out with a task or a project, cooking them dinner ormaking them a cup of coffee in the morning so that they don’t have to make them feel loved, appreciated and valued.

Acts of service lets someone know that they are not alone in tackling the endless tasks, duties and responsibilities of life. If quality time is about exchanging energy, this love language is all about sharing the load.

Because it is more practical than emotional, people who don’t speak this language may not always see its love value. But native speakers know that doing something for a loved one shows them that they are worth doing something for.

Gifts

Gift-giving/receiving is another love language that tends to get a bad rap, especially when it is used with heavy words like materialism and consumerism. But for native speakers of this love language, the right gift is the ultimate symbol of friendship, love, and devotion.

Gift-giving requires you to be attentive to your loved ones, to listen, to remember what they like, what they value, and then to invest time, energy and effort into procuring it for them. The right gift communicates that you know them because you were paying attention.

Like quality time, gifts are about being seen and heard by the people you love. That is why the wrong gift can be so hurtful. That said, almost anything can be a gift, from a pebble on the street to a party you threw in their honour. Giving gifts is not about buying stuff. It is about inspiring an object with their spirit and your love.

And ultimately, to give someone a gift is to give them the part of us
that loves them . The part that sees their significance. And the part that wants to come alive in their memory by bringing the best of our past into the present.

The Most Important Takeaway

I can go on and on about the value that knowing and applying this information could bring you. But you have to experience it for yourself. That said, there is one takeaway I would like to leave you with. You don’t have to value the five love languages equally, but each of them is equally valid. They are all manifestations of the same emotion and they all serve the same basic need — to love and be loved in return.

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Previously Published on medium

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