We all know the five love languages: words of affirmation, acts of service, gift-giving, physical touch and quality time. You know the drill.
And honestly? I love the idea of love languages. There’s something really nice about knowing how the person you love likes to be loved, about knowing how you like to be loved. There’s something really comforting about knowing that everyone gives and receives love in different ways.
But personally, I believe there is another love language that exists. One that doesn’t fit into any of the five existing categories. One that doesn’t get talked about enough.
The language of noticing and knowing.
I know, I know it sounds strange, but bear with me a moment. It’s when someone knows you so well that they notice the things that you haven’t said yet. Not in the mind-melding, telepathic way. More like noticing the really small things, the things you don’t think to mention at all or the things that you feel are so minute that they seem bothersome to draw attention to.
Like knowing that you love blasting the AC in the car even though you get cold, and that you never carry a jacket, so they carry one instead.
Or knowing when you don’t want to talk about something that’s bothering you, but you also don’t want to be alone, so they’ll just come and sit next to you quietly.
Or knowing that when you say “I don’t care what we eat”, you actually mean, “I’m too tired to choose, so could you please decide”.
The language of knowing is about someone noticing you. About them knowing so well and so intimately that you don’t notice what they’ve done until after the act is already over.
And I think that’s what makes it different from the traditional love languages, from the usual idea of acts of service. Because it’s not the action that truly matters. It’s the fact that the thought of doing the action has occurred to them. It’s the idea that someone has actually paid so much attention to the way in which you move through the world.
And I think that’s the most wonderful and intimate thing that a person can do. Because relationships ask for so much. They ask for compromise, time, affection, attention, reassurance, and so much more. Some are easy to give for some people, and others are harder, and vice versa. We learn each other’s likes and dislikes. Favourite colours, books, what vegetables we hate. But there is so much that we don’t say.
Some things we don’t know how to say. Things like: “I cannot speak to one more person right now, so can we please leave?” or “I’m having a really bad day, and I want you to notice that” or it’s something like “I need a hug, but don’t know how to ask for one”.
And then there are the other ones. The ones that we ourselves don’t really know.
The things we ourselves don’t know we need. It’s in the fact that they take the longer way home because you simply enjoy taking a drive. It’s in the fact that they let you rant for half an hour, because they know that you don’t want advice; you just need to get it all out. It’s in the fact that they always sit on your right on long journeys because that’s the direction in which your head tilts when you fall asleep.
And isn’t there just something so incredible about someone noticing you so much that they come to know you so deeply?
Perhaps that’s why to be known can feel so much like feeling loved, because there’s something comforting in not being forced to constantly translate yourself, to be forced to make yourself smaller. Knowing that someone is looking, is paying attention without you asking them to. They’re paying attention not because it is what’s expected of them, but simply because they want to. Because they care enough to keep learning about you.
It’s also why I think sometimes the grand gestures are a bit overrated. Do not get me wrong, if someone wants to throw me a surprise birthday celebration, or a surprise holiday, I am all in. But something about those small, almost invisible adjustments and that knowing and noticing, just seems so much more monumental.
Anyone can get you a bouquet, but remembering your favourite flowers are white lilies takes effort.
Anyone can say I love you, whether they truly mean it or not. But knowing all you want after a long day is a hug and some quiet is something bigger.
It’s easy to make the occasional grand romantic gesture, but it’s so much harder to remember all the small things over and over and over again.