Katarzyna Potocka
Some of you might have heard about the 5 love languages. If you haven’t I really recommend to dive a bit deeper into this topic. It might not only help you in navigating any kind of relationship, and I am not only talking about the romantic kind of relationship. But it might also benefit you in realising how you receive and even more important accept love from others and yourself. Learn to communicate LOVE so that others can receive the message and so that others also might learn how to transmit love messages so that you can take them.
And let’s also agree on LOVE being all kinds of love. The love in a romantic relationship. The love between siblings. The love between friends. And especially the love within your chosen family. Which might be the most honest love, because it is the one that you chose to give and are ready to receive.
The 5 love languages
Let’s start by clarifying what the 5 love languages are. As for the author of the book that introduced me to this topic, Gary Chapman, the 5 love languages are:
- Words of Affirmation
- Physical Touch
- Quality Time
- Receiving Gifts
- Acts of Service
Also don’t forget that you might have more than just one specific love language. You might have one main love language and still appreciate the others. You might have two love languages that are almost equally filling up your love tank. But there will always be one that just makes you feel amazing. That gives you the feeling that you are being loved, and cherished and appreciated for exactly who you are and what you are doing.
I will try to explain every single one how I understood them and also how I remember. If you want to make sure you get it right, please check them out on the official page: 5 love languages
Words of affirmation
This love language is for all the people who thrive on compliments aka words of affirmation. If you are someone who seeks out feedback and if you feel amazing when someone tells you that you look good, or that you did something well, or that you managed to solve a problem pretty decent, this might be your love language.
For me this love language is one of the least appealing ones. The reason for that is a childhood trauma that believe it or not, is still messing with my head, when it comes to people making me compliments or sharing words of affirmation with me.
So if I ever give you the feeling that I am not taking your words of affirmation seriously, forgive me for that, but there is a way deeper reason for that than just me ignoring you.
Physical Touch
I think this might be one of the more popular and common love languages amongst us. Although I am not sure what kind of influence coVid had on that, but I think that most people feel safe and appreciated when they get a hug or even just a tap on their shoulder. Physical touch should always be with consent and not too pushy though.
I am not sure if it is because I was raised without too much physical touch, or if it is because society is changing. Or because of the feeling that you might be overstepping several boundaries just by touching someone or even just by getting too close to someone. But I think that this love languages is a tricky one. If you tell someone that she looks pretty or that he is handsome, you most likely won’t overstep any dangerous boundaries. By touching someone, obviously still with consent, you still might get into a situation that might end up feeling awkward for both parties.
As mentioned I grew up without too much intentional physical touch, but I am trying to learn to get out of my comfort zone and “allow” and accept this love language. Not only when people gift it to me, but also trying to use it intentionally when I see that it might be a friend’s love language, with the hope of not overstepping too often.
Quality Time
Hell yes. This is sooooo me. But before we dive into how this works out for me, I’ll try to describe what this love language could mean. For me this means that you are spending some time, more specifically quality time, with friends, family, or whomever you feel comfortable with. In my opinion it is not sitting on two different ends of a couch binge watching Game of Thrones while checking your phone every 30 seconds. But it could mean discussing the next challenge for the new contests on “The Great Bake-off” while sharing a bottle of wine with four amazing girls all squeezed onto one couch in Madeira. It also could mean to spend an afternoon at the Danube, while reading a book and lying next to each other, chatting about all the things that come to mind, while enjoying the sun and just each others company. It obviously could also mean going for bouldering, climbing, or yoga with friends or just spending an evening while trying to win a game of Terraforming Mars.
And doing all those things and even more is exactly what fills my love tank. If you want me to know that you like me, love me, or just stand being close to me, suggest something that would give us the opportunity to have some quality time together. I am literally up for anything, even if it is watching a movie on the couch while spontaneously discussing the awesomeness of Bruce Willis or the challenges Harry Potter is being confronted with once again, while defeating him who must not be named.
Receiving Gifts
I think that this might be the one with the least longterm impact. I am not sure if it is because most of us are able to buy ourselves whatever we need. And therefor the need to have someone to gift us with thing swe might need, is not that obvious anymore. Or maybe it just depends on the gift that you receive. And I don’t mean the super expensive kind of present. No! On the contrary. One gift that might always show me that someone appreciates me would be something I knew he put a lot of time into. Those things that you know someone had to really think about are the ones that are the ones that make you feel loved. And in my case, gifting me with an activity we could do together aka spend some quality time would obviously be the best thing ever.
Acts of Service
I have to admit that with this love language I can’t really find a common ground. I can’t put a finger on it why that is the case. Maybe it is because I don’t see it as a sign of love, just common human interaction and necessity. If someone needs my help I tend to always try to do my best to help. And it might be even the case, that if someone asks me for help, it is more a sign of love and respect towards me, the person who is being asked for help, and not the other way round. Don’t get me wrong – if I could find someone who would be able to get me a bicycle without me having to bother about that, I would be forever and ever and ever grateful for that. So if you want to be my knight in a shiny armour, just tell me which bike to get. It doesn’t have to turn into the “Gift giving” love language – just send me the link to the online shop 😉
Why bother?
You might ask yourself why even bother with this. As always I can only share my personal opinion on this topic, but that’s what private blogs are for, right? After I read the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman I realised that have I known this stuff earlier in my life it might have influenced the outcome of several relationships, not only romantic ones, in a positive way.
Knowing the love language of people you surround yourself with makes it possible to show them that you “love” them in a way they can accept and understand it. Because as in all ways of communication it is not only what the sender is putting out there. But maybe even the more important part, or at least as important as the senders message, is the ability to receive whatever the sender was trying to say. And this is way obviously way easier, when the sender and the receiver are speaking the same “language”.
Imagine you are gifting a friend with tons of more or less expensive, rare, and special gifts. You are putting a lot of thoughts into chosing every single one of them and wrapping them up really nicely. You are even chosing the wrapping paper according to your friends favourite color. And the reaction that you are getting every single time is close to total ignorance or at least a very neutral “Thanks”. Which of course is absolutely fine.
Now imagine that you knew the love language of your friend. Let’s say it would be words of affirmation. Next time you might see your friend you could take a careful look on what she is wearing, and you might even realize that the clothes she chose to wear are a perfect match and turn out to be a very well-put-together outfit. You might compliment her on the way she put together the outfit and tell her how it compliments her body/eyes/or even personality. If that indeed is her love language, you would immediately see her lightening up and you literally could “see” her love tank being filled.
Isn’t that the reaction we all want to achieve? Isn’t that the reason why we give presents. Why we make compliments? Why we do all those little things for people we “love”? To fill up their love tanks. To make them feel worthy and good and loved. To make them notice how amazing they are, and how much we appreciate them.
My Love Language
You could probably easily guess my love language just by looking at the schedule of one of my last Sundays.
Looking at the screenshot you have to take into account that I had to shower at least 4 times that day and also had to commute between every activity at least 30-60 min each. But being able to spend my morning with one of my favourtie Yoga teachers. Then going for an exhausting although not very successful – in the means of not reaching even one of the tops during lead climbing – climbing session with a friend. Afterwards meeting up with a dear friend and her newborn baby, I see only a few times a year. And finishing the day with a sweaty but fun Bachata dance class at MyDance studio is my absolutely favourite kind of day.
This is exactly how I fill up my love tank. Spending time with people who I know (deep down) like me and want to spend their time with me, is my love language. This is probably also the reason why during my 71 day stay on Koh Lanta, I spent (not taking into account the hours I slept, showered or packed) only approximately 30 h in my hotel room. And those were driving me nuts 😉
Messages like “What are you doing next Saturday?”, “Are you in Vienna on the 27th-30th of June?”, “You should come and visit us in Bristol”, “Can I stay at your place?”, “I’m ready in 5. Let’s meet in the cafe.” (that’s a KoHub insider), are all different variations of people telling me that they “love” me. And I appreciate every single one of them!
So what I basically want to say is that spending time with people I love and who love me – and once again “love” means here any kind of deeper emotion between partners, friends, family – is what fills my love tank. Sharing activities with loved ones is what makes me happy. Going on hikes with friends is what makes me smile. Playing board games – even if I get my ass kicked – is what makes me feel relaxed. Lying next to a friend at the Danube while reading a book, is what makes me calm down. Cooking for friends is what makes me feel appreciated. Planning my trip to visit my chosen family is what makes my day. Taking care of friends is one of my favourite things to do.
I once had a discussion with a friend about introverst and extroverts. And at some point I mentioned that I am an introvert, which he absolutely denied being true. He said something like “I know that you think you are an introvert, but you are one of the most extroverted people I know”. After having that on my mind for a couple of weeks, I got the chance to discuss this with my cousin and his wife. Both, him and me, thought that we both were introverts. But after discussing what we all understood what an introvert or extrovert really is, we accepted that we might slightly lean more into being extroverts. And the definition we agreed on was the following:
Prerequests: when we talk about spending time with people, we assume that it is always people we like.
Introvert is a person who is able to spend some time with people, but reaches sooner or later a point when he needs to take a break, find a quite place, and spend some time on his own. This is when he fills his energy tank.
Extrovert is a person who thrives on spending time with others. As soon as she gets the opportunity to join a group of people she likes and enjoys her time, there is no limit of how long she could stay in this situation. She tends to be one of the last people leaving and that only because the bar closes, no one else is around, or the hosts literally ask her to leave 😉 Her energy tank is being drained when she is alone.
5 love languages – the quiz
If you are curious and not really sure what your love language(s) are, there are several quizzes you can take.
IMHO it is not only crucial to know other peoples love languages to be able to communicate with them and to be able to show them that you love them in a way they understand. But even more crucial it is to know your own personal love language. Because only then you are equipped to fill your personal love tank.
