Love Languages

Why telling those around you what matters to you might just help you feel a whole lot more loved

Good morning! Have you ever felt unloved, despite a person’s best attempts at loving you?

I’m sure by now everyone’s heard of Gary Chapman and his Five Love Languages book, courses, and online quiz (of which I’ve only interacted with the former, thus far), but just to reiterate, this super smart guy basically said that every gives and receives love in the following five ways: quality time, physical touch, giving/receiving gifts, words of affirmation, and acts of service.

Over the course of the past several months, my roommates and I have managed to befriend a “sister house” of girls that have a very similar living arrangement, and for one reason or another, we’ve talked a lot about personality tests, the enneagram test, and love languages, because we recognize that each of us operates slightly differently, and what makes one person feel like a million bucks might not mean much to anyone else.

For example, one of the ways I generally express my love for my friends is through giving gifts; I pride myself on being able to find the best, most meaningful gifts, but have come to the realization that not very few of my friends really care about gifts; they appreciate the thoughts behind it, but they would rather be welcomed into my home with a hug and be served a home-cooked meal with meaningful conversation than be given a gift, no matter meaningful it may be.

Some people may care about words, too; if you manage to give them the right compliment at the right time, you may just end up earning their undying loyalty, but if you said the same type of compliment to another person, they’d smile and thank you, but not really be moved or affected by it.

Listen, I’m absolutely sure that there are people who really love you, even despite you not feeling extremely loved by them; I would recommend that you figure out what your love languages are (and you might have to take the test several times), focus on what is most important to you (i.e. physical touch via hugs or words of affirmation via compliments), and clearly communicate that to the people around you, so they can not only continue to love you but also make you feel loved and cherished in the process.

God bless you, have a great day!