Your Words Flatter Me.
But I trust your actions more.
There’s this infamous list of ‘5 love languages’, this concept was created by Pastor Gary Chapman and many people have adopted it and used it to understand more about their needs, wants and expectations in relationships. It’s been found to be valid for romantic relationships, friendships, parent-child, any kind of relationship.
There’s a test that’s usually taken to find out what your love language is, but these are the 5:
- Words of affirmation
- Quality time
- Acts of service
- Gift giving
- Physical touch
These are ways to express your love to someone and we all appreciate them to various degrees, some more than others.
For example someone would believe you love them if you spent time with them, more than if you bought a gift for them and then you weren’t physically present.
They’re all important ways to show love and one area should not be neglected. People need to be shown love in the way they understand how to receive love and not just the way you know how to give love.
I’ve taken the test so many times and 2 of my major love languages are Quality time and Words of affirmation.
I saw a post one time, where someone didn’t understand how words of affirmation could be a major love language for another person.
They mentioned that it would be easy to just deceive such a person with sweet words.
But it doesn’t exactly work that way. At least not for me.
I appreciate when someone tells me things like:
I’m proud of you. You’re a good friend. I appreciate your efforts. You’re doing so well.
I remember as a child, anytime I showed my dad anything I had done (even if it was a nonsense drawing) he’d look at it and say : it’s the best!
That made me so happy. And I felt very loved and validated.
I also appreciate the mushy words, the love letters, the long paragraphs, the praises in appreciation of my beauty lool.
But not just anyone can come up to me to tell me sweet words and then i’d be falling to the ground.
No it doesn’t work that way for me.
Because I believe words should come from a place of knowing someone. I believe they should come from a place of sincerity.
If we have related with each other and you’ve spent some time with me and then you come to a conclusion and say for example: I think you’re very smart; the words would hit me more then.
I had an experience where I had spoken with someone for 2 days. I kid you not 2 days!!
And the person sent a whole mushy paragraph and ended it with ‘I love you Sharon’.
I was so put off by it.
Then I asked ‘what do you love about me?’
And of course, the person couldn’t give any answer.
It was clear that the ‘love’ this person had was just physical attraction.
We didn’t know anything about each other, not even our surnames! So which kain love?
Yes, I was flattered, and I even blushed a little (i’m just a girl please lol), but I don’t just trust words, I trust actions too.
I believe if you say something, you should also back it up with what you do.
I miss you- Then call me, make an effort to spend time with me. Don’t ghost or ignore my messages for weeks.
I respect you- Then don’t talk to me in a rude or condescending manner.
You’re my best friend- But you didn’t show up for me when I needed you the most. But you gossiped about me.
I love you- Then send funds. Lool. Jk.
But I’m sure you get the point.
It’s not enough to just hear these words and to be having butterflies up and down.
Random: Sometimes I read some of all these ‘love letters’ and I just ‘yinmu’, lool because I know it’s a scam and men can liieeeee.
Do your words have any meaning?
Are you putting in effort to show that your words are from a place of sincerity?
So yeah, I love hearing words that show you appreciate me and think I’m the most beautiful human in the world.
But even more so, I love when you prove that you meant what you said by what you do.
I guess this makes Acts of service my third love language lool.
Thank you so much for taking time to read my writing. It truly means a lot. Please clap up to 50 times, share, comment if you can and also subscribe so you’d get an email everytime a new writing drops.
Thanks and God bless.
xoxo
-Sharon Stephen
