Why You Should Be Familiar With Your Love Language

Everyone has their own language when it comes to showing the ones they love, whether it be family, friends or significant others, how they feel about them. Maybe you like spoiling people with gifts and your attention, or maybe you prefer telling someone how much you care about them and hearing it in return. 

There are 5 types of love languages: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch. Most people have a primary love language which is followed closely by the other four. I have also noticed that a lot of people, including myself, tend to have a different love language when it comes to showing love as compared to receiving it. Whatever it may be, it is good to know what your love languages are so that your emotions and intent are not lost in the message.

Words of Affirmation

This love language is focused on speech. Love is shown through verbal praise and spoken affection – phrases like, “I love you,” “I appreciate you,” “You are so beautiful,” or “You are so amazing at that.” These people essentially tell the people they love how much they love them. Also, people might like giving words of affirmation, receiving them, or both. I know for me, I love giving and receiving words of affirmation from my loved ones. 

Acts of Service

This refers to doing physical actions for your loved ones. That could be cooking them food, driving them somewhere, giving them a massage or helping them with their work. Those with this love language basically like to show they care by helping people in some way, shape or form. 

Gifts

Some people like to show their love by spoiling the ones they care about with gifts. These gifts are usually personalized and significant with a lot of thought and care put into them. If someone with this love language gives you a gift, it usually means that they were thinking of you and wanted to show that you are important to them. I definitely like to indulge the people I love with gifts and things that I feel like they would like as a way of saying, “I love you.”

Quality Time

Some people show their love by giving a person their complete and undivided attention. Sometimes just being with the person they care about is all they need to feel loved, whether they are going grocery shopping, biking or even just sitting down and talking. It does not matter what the act is, as long as they are with their loved one. 

Physical Touch

People usually think of sexual acts when it comes to this love language, but it does not necessarily only refer to sex. You can share physical touch in other ways such as hugging, holding hands or even sitting close to one another. Also, this is not only for romantic relationships. Some people are physical with their other relationships too. I personally do not like people touching me unless it is in a romantic setting, but I have several friends who are very touchy with each other in a platonic way. 

I hope that this helped you in recognizing the various ways in which people show love for each other. It’s important to know what love language you are most connected to and to understand that everyone loves differently. Hopefully this knowledge will help you strengthen your bonds and remind you that communication is always key in any relationship. 

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• love
• love language
• Physical Touch
• quality time
• Words of Affirmation