You can ask a million people the same question: “What is the highest form of love?” And they will all give you a different answer. Some will say consideration, or communication, or honesty, loyalty, or many other things. What is your highest form of love may not be someone else’s highest form of love. There is no right or wrong way to love someone, but there is a difference between what you may need and what the people you love may need out of the friendship, relationship, etc.
Love begins with consideration
To consider how your actions may affect someone else, to notice the little things about them, to notice their small shifts in emotion. I think we all subconsciously think about how what we do may affect certain people, but who we consider is what matters. Who do you think about before you make a big life decision? I think consideration is one of the highest forms of love, but I don’t think that it is the end-all, be-all.
The Intimacy of Being Curious
Wanting to understand why someone does the things they do, why they are upset, why they feel the way they feel. I think wanting to understand someone is such an intimate thing. Just as we learn anything else in our lives, we learn people by being curious. You didn’t just meet your best friend and automatically know that she loves birthday cake flavored things, or that she loves Mamma Mia. Those are things you learned by being around them, by spending time with them, by being curious enough to ask questions. Just like learning, we take as much out of things as we put in; if you want to learn the information, if you are excited to ask questions, you will understand better. The same goes for the people we love; if you are excited to get to know them, if you want to ask questions, you will understand them better. I think that being curious about someone is one of the most loving things you can do for them; it shows you care to know them on a deeper level.
Communication is more than talking
Communication is often reduced to being able to talk about your feelings, but in reality it is your willingness to talk with someone. Communicating isn’t just about talking; it’s about being willing to have an uncomfortable conversation to make your relationship with someone stronger. I also think there needs to be a distinction between communicating to be heard and communicating to understand. When you’re communicating to understand and be understood, you are choosing to maybe hear something you didn’t want to, or say something you may not have been super comfortable saying.
Love has to be consistent
Consideration, curiosity, and communication can all seem super meaningful in little moments, but what do they mean if they are not done consistently? What happens when you are only curious about one aspect of someone, or when you only communicate when it benefits you, or if you only consider someone on their birthday? Feeling loved for a brief moment means nothing when it is not done consistently. I think that consistency is what allows other expressions of love to be trustworthy; consistency is what allows you to rely on communication, consideration, and curiosity. Without consistency, all other forms of love are just acts of kindness.
What Happens after we get it wrong?
And lastly, accountability: no one is going to be considerate all the time, no one communicates perfectly, and sometimes even the people we love hurt us. But what’s important is what happens afterward. Saying “I’m sorry you feel that way” is not the same as wanting to understand someone’s hurt. Accountability can mean acknowledging how you hurt someone, or apologizing without immediately expecting forgiveness, or making changes instead of making empty promises. Accountability is about caring enough to acknowledge when you may not be in the right.
Learning to love beyond ourselves
Imagine someone is showing their love for someone by doing things for them. They make plans, help with problems, and try to make people’s lives better. But the person they are loving values verbal reassurance and communication. Neither person’s way of loving is wrong; they have just expressed it differently. Whether it’s through nature, experience, or life events, the way each person loves is different. This is why so many people struggle to give and receive love properly; it is important to learn the people you love so that you know what it is they need to know that you love them. It is also important to understand how to receive love, even if you value a different version more.
So is there really a ‘highest form of love’ or is it different for everyone? Personally, I think that all of these ways to love are intertwined. Trying to communicate with someone is hard when neither of you is curious about the other. It is hard to be able to consider someone without understanding them. And affection without consistency can leave someone wondering if it is something that they can rely on. Perhaps there isn’t just one high form of love. Maybe the highest form is dependent on the people involved, the relationship they are building, and the experiences that have shaped the people into who they are.