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Love as a language

Recently, I read a book called 'The Art of Loving' by Eric Fromm, a psychologist, and the book basically outlined what humans need in order to love, and to be loved. He highlights a crucial point: while we may think that we all need to dress up and change our appearances to be loved, we are actually focusing on the wrong side of loving. Instead of showing to others why they should love us, we should love others to show that there are reasons to love them. You see, Fromm describes love as not about how beloved someone is, but rather how loving someone could be.

Which brings me to love languages. As most people know, love languages are actions, or behaviours, showing others that you love them. You could show these 'languages' to your lover, your friends, your families, and even just showing others that you respect them. There are five commonly identified love languages: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, and receiving gifts. These languages vary in everyone, and everyone has a unique way of showing their love that usually falls underneath these categories. 

There are loads of quizzes online that helps you discover what your love language is, and if you're like me who loves a combination of a few of them, sometimes, loving someone could be confusing. For example, I love spending quality time with my family, but I enjoy words of affirmation from my lover. I love hugging my friends to show that I love them, but I also love writing them sappy paragraphs to show that I appreciate them and am thankful that I met them.

My point is: there shouldn't be a single love language that you show. Sure, there's probably one that you show more than the others, but especially for me, I find it difficult to just label one as my love language and go with the flow. 

Rather, I like to think of love languages as, simply, languages. Once you master a language, you are able to use it whenever you want, interpret it whenever you want. The same applies to when you 'master' loving someone else. I grew up spending quality time with my family to show them that I appreciate them, and it's always a good time when I spend time with them. And so, I never had to show physical touch for them to know that I love them, nor do I have to buy gifts to show them that I appreciate them. I have learnt to manipulate the language of love according to my needs, and that makes me show love to others easily and effectively. Sometimes, their love language would not match mine, and it's okay. We just learn to adapt to each other and learn how to do so. 

Love is an ongoing process; there's no stages you arrive to and you just stop learning how to love someone. And that, I think, is the most beautiful thing about love.

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