Day 223

Those who are familiar with The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman must have realised that people express love differently. We all have our preferences in showing our love and receiving love. Since we were just kids, my mother has learned each of her children's love languages. She and my father strive to make sure their love for us are shown accordingly.

I've been contemplating about my own love languages (if you're curious which one is yours, you can take the free test here). I am already familiar with my top three primary love languages yet I was still curious about the stages or layers of me showing my love to particular people. I am not the type of person who could easily express my love and often times people mistake my politeness as a sign that I am attracted to them. That's not always accurate, unfortunately. Moreover, I tend to send out wrong cues to the people I am genuinely interested in. So, I examined my own attitude and choice of action in order to communicate the right message and avoid misunderstanding.

After putting some thoughts, I finally came out with these 7 "stages" of me showing my love:

1. I show my curiosity of that person (secretly or openly try to get to know them more)
2. I respond to their messages with warmth, or initiate conversation once or thrice
3. I personally voice or write my appreciation for that person
4. I eagerly spend quality time with that person
5. I send them thoughtful personalised gifts or something I make
6. I publicly voice my appreciation for that person (kind of 'brag' about them to other people)
7. I give them hugs

In other words, curiosity plays an important role at the start. Curiosity leads to interaction, interactions lead to affirmation, and affirmation leads to intimacy.

How do you express love? Are you the type of person who loves right away or, like me, takes sometime to show it to others? Remember, love is a do thing. Let us love in action and truth.