Language: Love

My first language was Love.. but I can only speak it. I don’t understand it.

Okay, Okay, bad joke. Give me a break, it’s super early and I haven’t slept much in over a week.

So. Love Language. I really hate that term, though I have no real reason why. I guess I feel like it oversimplifies a complex subject. I have to admit, though, that knowing the ways you give and receive love can be helpful… but people treat it like the zodiac, like these labels are somehow going to tell you everything you need to know.

Whatever. People will do what they do.

ANYWAY!

So I took the official Love Language test https://5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/love-language and it told me exactly what I already know:

Quality Time

When it comes to receiving, this is accurate. Quality Time is my #1. That’s what shows me you care. I try to be accepting of others’ methods of showing love, but my mind cannot wrap itself around someone genuinely caring without without butting time into our relationship.

And Quality Time doesn’t refer to big, important things. Yes, it can be going on a trip together. It can also be staying up late talking. It can be taking a class together or playing a video game. It can be working on a home improvement project or going for a walk. It can even be each of us doing our own thing, but in the same room. It just means that whatever we’re doing, we feel each other’s presence.

Acts of Service

I think this is #2 because of how little I’ve experienced it in relationships. I feel like that was honestly a huge sign that I was going down the wrong path. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely independent and do not often like accepting help (I’m working on it, okay?). but if I’m struggling and a person is completely aware, could easily help without it costing more than a little of their time, and they still don’t offer… doesn’t that show they don’t care?

To be fair, I have become more sensitive about this issue since my disability was triggered. I am always willing to help others, even when it means a major sacrifice for myself, so if I’m obviously struggling, severely sick or in extreme pain, and someone doesn’t seem to care, what could we possibly be to each other?

Words of Affirmation

This shows as half as important as my main, and that makes sense to me. Half the time I don’t believe these words. Unlike the top two choices, words are easy to fake. People say things for all kinds of ulterior motives and it’s hard to find someone who actually speaks honestly. I tend to prefer people who say such things sparingly, because then it actually feels like they mean it when they finally do say it.

On the other hand, not saying such things often enough can make a person feel unappreciated and unloved. They may even start feeling like the other categories are done out of obligation. This is one reason why I try to take time out every once in a while to remind people that I love and appreciate them, and that I’m proud of them. Some say I do it too often, or believe I am too emphatic or poetic to be genuine, but I mean it all the same. Perhaps this makes me a hypocrite.

Gifts

Here’s where we really get into the hypocritical stage. Receiving gifts that are personalized and thought out is absolutely meaningful. It is a wonderful thing.

And I don’t trust it.

I am not big on material items in the first place. I love things, because things are cute or cool or whatever, but I don’t worship them the way others seem to. If I’m receiving a thing, it better have heart put into it. It better invoke a memory or tell a story about us or in some way touch my soul. It has to have meaning. If it’s a game we can play together, great! If it’s a framed photo of us, that’s sweet. If it’s food, you’re trying to help me take care of myself and that’s amazing. But if it’s a hedgehog plush because you know I like hedgehogs, that’s cute and all, but it’s just a thing. I’ll feel guilty that you wasted the money.

However, I’m a person who likes surprising people with gifts. Usually they qualify as another category as well, so maybe I’m not a total hypocrite.

Physical Touch

Okay, this is… this is a difficult one. It depends, right? I guess for some people it doesn’t, but for me.. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just changed. In high school, I’d have people I’d never met coming to me for hugs and I thought that was the nicest thing. I could show them a little affection, I could show them a little love, without knowing a thing about them. I remember one guy who just spent an entire lunch hour with his arms wrapped around me and I never even learned his name. I happened to see him years later and he remembered me so fondly, that he tried to date me. But I considered it a form of caretaking, comforting.

I don’t like when I go to a church and the greeters hug me. I tolerate it when friends hug me. I like when my kids hug me, and I love when my partner hugs me. As for other touch, I really prefer if it’s only from my partner.

But if I really love them, I touch them often. Love bites, holding hands at home, hugging from behind while they are cooking or washing dishes, playing with their hair, stroking their chest with my fingertips as we cuddle in bed.. I do it all.

And sexual touching and teasing is great, too, especially in public. However, I think my score in this was so low because so much of the physical touch I’ve gotten from partners was sexual or was expected to turn sexual. I miss the cute, sweet, innocent stuff. Sex without the rest is just sex. The sweet stuff makes it love.

Overall

So truth be told, the test was only accurate for my receiving love, not my giving love. This is how I accept love, but I give it intensely, through all methods possible. I love in a way that makes every guy I date want to propose quickly, and leaves a void for them after we break up. I have a tendency to pick men who do not show love in the ways that I need, contrary to what they promise when talking me into the relationship. I have a hard time trusting that friends care about me when I never get time with them.

I know all this, I know myself, I love myself as-is, but I’m still lonely.

And I don’t even know why I created this post.

Hidden Angels

When I was a kid, I had a neighbor who didn’t speak English. Her family members did, and I knew them fairly well, but she and I had no language shared. Still, on my way home from school, she would stop me and invite me inside. She was often the only one home, and I would just sit at the kitchen table as she cooked me something wonderful. I didn’t always know what she had made, but I always ate it, always enjoyed it, and she always smiled so beautifully as I did. Then I’d thank her and be on my way.

Looking back, I wonder.. did she know I was starved at home? Did she know I felt alone, unloved? Did she know that she was a blessing for this broken, pitiful little girl?

Her own grandchildren were terrible, rude, and inconsiderate. They had some level of respect for her, but when visiting, would hit, belittle, and swear at their father and aunt. We were friends, but it was that kind of friendship you had when you were thrown together because you were the same age and your parents knew each other. I felt sorry for their family – Their sweet aunt, a slightly crazy caretaker who would stop me on the street to tell me I was beautiful, like a porcelain doll, their kind father, a friendly, good-natured pushover, who had probably saved my life a handful of times,, and that wonderful grandmother.

Did she know? Did her daughter and son? Did any of them know that they were my angels, my saviors, as my own family neglected me, hated me, plotted my death? Did any of them have a clue that they were saving this shredded soul?

I was so young, so shy, so afraid.. I never told them what it meant to me.

And there were others angels, too. My uncle, who never got along with my father, but would try, and got me away from him from time to time. My teacher, who knew I was in pain, but gave me a break sometimes and tried to make me believe in myself. The guys who watched over me in high school, protected me from going too far when I was not okay and wanted to act out. The friends who gave me a quiet place to talk about real things, when I wasn’t in the mood to go play social butterfly to the masses.

And even in adulthood, the friend who supported me from the background, no matter what, when, or where.

Have any of them ever known that they are the reason this heart is still beating? The reason I can let go and laugh and love myself? And how many out there are doing these little things, things that they think are nothing, things that are saving someone like me?

Could I even be one of them?