Every now and then I like to pull out the 'I love you's' on unsuspecting victims and see how they react. Only to people I actually love though of course. I read a book once called 'The Five Love Languages' which talked about how we give and receive love in different ways. Basically we all have a dominant way of giving and receiving love, and the others, to a lesser extent. We also usually have one or two that we react negatively to. Where there is confusion in relationships is when we don't properly understand the love language of our friends or partner.
The love languages are:
1. Word of Affirmation - using words like 'I love you' to express love
2. Physical Touch - not sex, but actually that is a form of it. Giving someone a hug, leaning on them or just being 'touchy' to show love.
3. Quality Time - You may notice it's not just 'time', but 'quality'\ time'. Like spending the afternoon on the couch, drinking tea and talking deeply about life type time.
4. Acts of Service - Doing something for someone or having someone do something for you.
5. Gifts - The giving of something to someone (usually special, not a token birthday gift, although I guess this is a form of it)
Knowing the preferences of your partners and friends helps you show love in a way which they can acknowledge and respond well to. For example, if I was an 'acts of service' person and you came over and cleaned the dishes for me, I would feel more loved than if you bought a gift for me. Makes perfect sense I reckon.
For the record, I'm a Quality Time and Physical Touch type. I really don't respond well to gifts (although I am surprised often how awesome they can be), and I feel uncomfortable with acts of service.
The one I love to toy with (and the purpose of this post) is Words of Affirmation. Usually when I usually spring this on someone in a telephone call, the friend on the other end would end the call within about 1 or 2 minutes because they feel a little uncomfortable. In a card, far less effect. In person, similar awkwardness to the phone call, but they have no where to run. I believe that secretly we all love to be told that we are loved, and even if we are awkward at the time, afterwards we probably get a whole bunch of warm fuzzies from it. Then of course, there are the people that can't be told enough.
Someone smart in a documentary I once watched said 'when you are lying on your death bed, you won't be thinking "gee I've lived in some lovely homes and driven some nice cars, I really loved my job and wished I had some more time to work a little more". No. Instead the more likely thought would be "do the people I love, know that I love them? Have I told them enough or done enough to show how much I care? Do they know who I truly am? Have I shared this with them?"
Find someone in your life who you love and just tell them. It will probably be met with dead silence like in Ally's blog, or they'll attempt to end the conversation quickly, but it's probably the start of something really important and special for your relationship, and they will definitely get those warm fuzzies later.
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