It’s no big secret that we all receive and give love in different ways, either through physical touch, spending quality time with our loved ones, or from receiving gifts, among many others. These are the fundamental ways of how we’d like to both give and receive love. Another thing that we need to establish is that everyone’s a little different in the ways that they express their affection, this is why it’s important to figure out what exactly is our love language so that we can better show and express our affection to our loved ones. So let’s start.
Now that we’ve defined what love languages are, we need to know what types of love languages there are. Generally speaking, there are about 5 common love languages; words of affirmations, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. It’s also possible for you to have more than one love language since everyone’s a little bit different. But enough about that, let’s five into the five love languages!
Let’s start with words of affirmation.
Words of affirmation are one of the most common love languages. People whose primary love language is words of affirmation are all about expressing and receiving affection through words of encouragement, kind words, praise, or appreciation. You can either start by pointing out that they’re doing well, giving them praise for what they’re doing and how well they are at doing something, sending them uplifting quotes, love notes, or even cute text messages. What’s important here is that you mean what you say to them and that you’re genuine about the things that you tell them because though words have no concrete form in real life, they may mean the world to them.
Next up is quality time.
This one is rather self-explanatory, isn’t it? People whose primary love language is quality time give and receive affection through giving someone their undivided attention. Either by putting their phone down, making eye contact, and paying all of their attention to you when you’re spending time together, this is how they express their affection to you. They express this by making sure that they are absolutely present in the very moment and making sure that you are their main focus in the present moment. People with this love language are seeking quality over quantity which means they are just as content spending a few hours of uninterrupted time with you where all of their focus lies on you rather than spending an entire day with you when they’re busy with other things in their lives because they just can’t express their affection for you that way.
The third love language is acts of service.
This love language is a little more unique than others, this is mainly because people with this love language tend to prefer expressing and receiving affection through actions. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture to get them to feel affection or to let them express their affection, it’s quite the opposite, people with this love language as their primary love language will often prefer small actions like doing chores for their partner, run errands for them, etc without having being asked to do it first beforehand. This love language defines the phrase that love is a verb and for people with acts of service as their main love language, it really is a verb.
The fourth is receiving gifts.
This love language is rather straightforward. You see, people with receiving gifts as their primary love language will more often than not prefer gifts as a way for them to either receive or express their affection. Like all the other love languages we’ve discussed so far, people with receiving gifts as their primary love language does not need expensive or extravagant gifts or anything of the sort because it’s not about how much the gift costs, no, on the contrary, these gifts are meant to symbolize your thoughts; that you’ve thought of them today and that this item that you’ve decided to gift them symbolizes and reminds you of that person. As with most of the love languages above, it’s more about the thought and actions that you use to back up your claims of affection to them that matters rather than the actual object being given is.
The last love language is physical touch.
People with this love language will tend to prefer expressing and receiving their affection through physical touch, just as the name would suggest. This can be anything from something as simple as holding hands, sitting close together while you watch a movie, or letting them lie their head on yours. People with this primary love language will tend to prefer expressing and receiving affection from their loved ones simply through being held by their loved ones. It doesn’t take a grand gesture or anything like that, simply hold them and make them feel safe and it will be enough.
People express and receive affection in different ways and that’s perfectly fine, but what you need to keep in mind is that expressing your emotions, especially your affection to your loved ones is one of the most important things to do in life. Try to understand and find out what their love language is and tell them what you love language is, and see for yourself how great things can be when everyone expresses their affection the way the other person expects to.