I Never Said “I Love You” Much

A while ago someone asked me a simple question: “How do you show love, and how do you like to receive it?”

I opened my mouth to answer and realized I had never really thought about it. I knew what love felt like. I had no idea what it looked like when it left my hands, or what I was quietly hoping to get back.

So I spent a few weeks paying attention. This is what I found.

How I show love

I remember small things.
I remember how you take your tea. I remember the name of the friend you were worried about three weeks ago, and I’ll ask how it turned out. If you mention you’re nervous about Thursday, I’ll text you on Thursday morning.

None of this is impressive. But I’ve come to think that being remembered is one of the quietest ways to be loved. It says: you took up space in my head even when you weren’t in the room.

I show up with my time.
I’m not a big-gesture person. I won’t plan a surprise party. But I’ll drive across the city in traffic because you had a bad day, and I’ll sit with you and say very little. Time is the one thing none of us gets back, so I try to spend it on people on purpose.

I fix things.
This is the one I’m a little embarrassed about. When someone I love is stressed, my instinct is to solve it. I’ll send links, make a plan, offer a list of options. It comes from a good place, but I’ve learned it can feel like I’m not listening. Sometimes people don’t want a solution. They want company while the problem is still a problem.

I’m working on it. Mostly by asking, “Do you want advice, or do you want me to just listen?” It sounds awkward. It works.

I’m bad at words, and I’m learning to be less bad.
Where I grew up, love was often shown through food, through errands, through someone quietly handing you a plate. People didn’t say it out loud much. I think a lot of us carry that. We assume the other person knows.

They often don’t. Or they do, but they’d still like to hear it. I’ve started saying the sentence even when it feels clumsy, and nobody has ever once been upset that I did.

How I like to receive it

Here’s where it gets interesting, because it’s not the same list.

I want to be asked real questions.
Not “how are you?” in the passing-by tone. I mean the kind of question that shows someone has been thinking about my life. “Did you ever decide about that job?” does more for me than any gift.

I want to be given space without being left alone.
This is a strange combination, I know. When I’m overwhelmed I go quiet, and what I need is someone who doesn’t take the silence personally. A message that says “no need to reply, just thinking of you” is about the best thing you can send me. It asks for nothing and still lets me know you’re there.

I want honesty, delivered kindly.
I would rather hear a hard truth from someone who obviously cares than a comfortable lie from someone who doesn’t want to deal with it. If you love me, tell me when I’m being unfair. Just don’t do it in front of other people, and don’t do it when you’re angry.

I want to be trusted with my own decisions.
This one matters more than I expected. Love that tries to manage me, even gently, feels like a small cage. Love that says “I’m worried, but it’s your life and I’m behind you” feels like air.

The gap

What surprised me most was how different my two lists were. I give love through doing: fixing, showing up, remembering. I want to receive love through attention: being asked, being heard, being given room.

That gap explains a lot. It explains why I’ve sometimes given people exactly what I would want and watched it miss. And it explains why people have given me their version of love, which was real, and I didn’t recognize it because it came in a language I wasn’t listening for.

A friend of mine shows love by teasing. For years I thought she was a little unkind. It took me a long time to understand that the teasing was her way of saying you’re safe with me, I can poke at you because I know you’re strong. Once I saw that, I started hearing something different every time she did it.

What I’d suggest

If you want to try this yourself, here’s the short version of what I did:

Notice what you do for people when you love them. Don’t judge it. Just write it down.
Notice what makes you feel loved. Think about the last time you felt really cared for. What actually happened?
Compare the lists. If they’re different, welcome to the club.
Tell someone. Out loud, or in a text. “The thing that makes me feel most loved is…” is a strange sentence to say, and it’s a gift to the person who hears it.
Ask them the same question. Then believe their answer, even if it’s not what you’d have guessed.

…

One last thing

I used to think love was mostly a feeling, something that happened to you and then you just had it. I think now it’s closer to a habit of attention. It’s noticing, repeatedly, what the other person needs, and being willing to learn that it isn’t what you would need.

I’m still bad at it some days. I still reach for the fix when I should reach for the listening. But I’m better than I was, and I think that’s the whole thing.

So, how do you show love? And how do you like to receive it?

I’d really like to know.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.