Love Language Revisited

Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash

By Erin Deborah Waks

Italian director Federico Fellini once said, ‘a different language is a different vision of life.’ And, as a linguist myself, I couldn’t agree more. Parisian, sexy, French Erin is more mysterious than heart-on-her-sleeve English Erin, and is certainly a far cry from erudite, aloof Arabophone Erin. But I hazard a guess that language, here, is not merely the words we speak. Perhaps, instead, it’s a stand-in for the oft unspoken language through which we express love.

It’s funny. I grew up thinking the best way to show you love someone is, well, to show them. Remember little things they like. Buy presents for them. Send cute things in the post. And yet when these things are done for me - when I receive presents, when acts of service are rendered in my favour - I’m often left feeling lacking. 

I always thought my love language was acts of service, but it turns out that’s only how I show love, and not at all how I like to receive it. I think I’ve learnt that recently, to be honest. You can move heaven and earth for me, buy me a hundred expensive roses, and I’ll be left feeling dejected. Feeling like you don’t love me. Feeling that all I wanted was to be physically held and told I am loved. There’s little a casual display of intimacy, my hand held in public or a hug from someone I love, can’t fix.

I think it’s because, as a writer, I find it easy to manipulate words to have a certain meaning, so I have a hard time trusting everything I’m told. But I can’t fake a physical feeling. It’s vulnerable for me; I’m protective over my body, my skin. After years of learning to love it, I won’t let anyone near me if I don’t trust they will have the same respect and love for it as I do. That’s been too much of an uphill battle to let just anyone in. 

But I’m a contradiction, because at the same time, I sometimes need words of reassurance to calm the constant whirring in my mind.

It seems, then, that there’s a gap between the way we know how to show our feelings and the way we like to be shown. And that language is so intrinsically linked to the person speaking it, to the way they view their life.

My dad shows it in the hours spent listening to me, in the admin he does that he knows I hate. His language is his view on life, I think - practical, supportive, encouraging and yet empowering, leaving the decisions and independence in the hands of his own children. My mum can cook like no one else, and will drop everything for someone in need. For her, her language is one of action, of providing, of placing other people’s needs first when it’s required, of making people feel special. My littlest brother wants to chat for hours, while the oldest is content with a fist-bump. The first is curious, in the world and in relationships, and the second is merely comfortable in silence, certain, assured. My middle brother likes to create music. Artistic expression is, I think, his greatest way of living, and thus of loving. My best friend, on the other hand, will send me the most exquisitely written words and paragraphs of love without so much as a moment of hesitation. She is a writer, in love and in life.

I’m still figuring out what my own language is. Like my outlook, vision, on life, it’s hardly likely to be easily definable in a word. A whole linguistic system, more like.