February is best known for Valentine’s Day: The designated day for love, decadent chocolates and fuzzy, pink socks. If for nothing else, use the holiday as an opportunity to celebrate the unique loves of your life. 

A popular way to discuss how different people love is through the five love languages, an idea first introduced by Gary Chapman – a rather random Christian man – in 1992. 

Chapman’s love languages aren’t backed by enough science to explain our intricate hearts, so don’t obsess over fitting into one category. However, each love language can speak to the human experience of love in an important way, or at least a way that’s fun to discuss near Valentine’s. 

How we express and like to receive love can greatly impact our relationships: Our platonic love, our familial love, our romantic love and even our love for the average acquaintances we affect in passing.

It’s highly unlikely you encompass only one love language; the emotion is much too complicated to define!

But for this season of love or even just for today, which love language resonates with you most? 

GIVING GIFTS 

For some, the best way to show love is with a tangible token. If you find joy in giving – and receiving – gifts, you may be part of this category. 

Sincere congratulations on your ability to manage the holidays with significantly less stress than the rest of us! 

But in all seriousness, your affinity for giving is special.

It’s not surprising so many celebrations across the globe include a gift-giving tradition. In fact, when we give gifts or receive gifts our brains release oxytocin, often nicknamed the “love hormone.” Simply explained, the acts of giving and receiving create links between the social interaction parts of our brains and the parts that create pleasurable feelings, according to the American Psychological Association. 

Penguin culture also tends to exhibit gift-giving as a primary love language, and just for that similarity, you should be extra proud of your love language. Just make sure your generous nature doesn’t take too much of your own energy – or out of your own pocket. 

ACTS OF SERVICE

Sometimes the sweetest gift can’t be wrapped; cliche, maybe, but only because the sentiment is true. If you still like to give, but your gifts are less physical, your love isn’t any less real.

An act of service could be a delicious meal lovingly cooked, a hated chore lovingly finished or advice lovingly – and appropriately – shared. 

They can be grand acts or smaller but still meaningful. As long as the action causes no harm, there’s no shortage of what might constitute an act of service. 

Maybe your roommate fetched you a snack from the kitchen when you really, really, really didn’t want to stand up and that made you feel absurdly appreciated. 

Maybe you offered to pick a friend up from work and kept them out of the blustery winter weather because it was second nature to see a loved one safely home, not because you have tons of money to spend on gas. 

To act out of love, however small, is enough to make the world go round.

WORDS OF AFFIRMATION 

Other times, nothing is more powerful than beautiful, vulnerable or simply well-placed words. 

Perhaps our English and communication majors on campus fill a large fraction of this love language population, composing romantic sonnets comparable to Shakespeare’s genius. 

But words of affirmation don’t necessarily need to be immensely dramatic or elegant. Not everyone can be Mr. Darcy. 

They can be a simple “I love you,” a basic expression of gratitude or even a small compliment, and they can still be among the most influential vessels for love. 

Language has an unmistakable ability to affect humans. But oftentimes we have the unfortunate habit of disbelieving how valuable kind words can be. 

Many people reject an instinct to compliment, fearing the vulnerability of saying something kind won’t outweigh the beneficial impact the compliment will have on their muse, according to the National Library of Medicine. 

Research finds, however, that complimenters feel significantly happier after following through, and as for the complimented, a kind word can have a dramatic effect on a person’s mood and self-image. Loving words remind us of redeemable qualities about ourselves we might have a tendency to forget. 

QUALITY TIME

This love language might very well manifest itself as a desire to sit on the couch and scroll through reels side-by-side with your loved one – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

But the quality time love language might also manifest as the desire to do something meaningful together, to go on a date or to plan a hang out somewhere exciting. Quality time may easily encompass several of the other love languages as prerequisites for making time spent together high quality. 

For some people with this love language, quality time must be uninterrupted, private or engaged to truly count as quality time. 

If you do need more than time just spent in the same space with your loved one to feel loved, that doesn’t make you high maintenance. And if you need time together, but it doesn’t need to be anything specific, that doesn’t make you boring. 

Whatever differentiates time on a clock from time that defines love to you, don’t ever be ashamed. Life’s too short to hide your needs. 

PHYSICAL TOUCH

If you feel most connected to your loved ones when you’re hugging a friend or cuddling close to your partner, physical touch may be your most treasured love language. 

From a light touch on the shoulder to a kiss to intimacy, touch is an indisputably important sense for human beings. Touch is certainly too grand to list all the ways it can be utilized and received.

Seeing is believing, but being able to feel something, or someone, can create evidence of their existence for your mind in a way little else can. In the case of love, evidence of something incomparably wonderful. 

Physical touch also has significant health benefits; we’re warm-blooded mammals after all, and we have some loveable instincts to pool our physical resources. 

Touching and being touched has notable stress-relieving and calming effects on humans, generally releasing oxytocin and dopamine. The power of touch is so much so that touch between humans and animals, and even humans and robots, can have similar effects, according to the National Library of Medicine. 

From giving to talking and kissing to simply absorbing another’s energy, there’s no shortage of ways to love. These five categories are only the tip of a very large, rose-tinted iceberg. 

How do you love, NIU?

Results from last week’s poll: What is the best gift to receive on Valentine’s Day?

Flowers – 31%

Chocolate – 17%

Jewelry – 10%

Candles – 3%

Stuffed animals – 17%

Other – 21%