Love languages and other things I had to learn this February

In February, I was introduced to a term I had no idea existed: “Love Languages”. Apparently, this is how certain people express their affection and at the same time how we ourselves wish to have the emotion expressed to us.

I was chilling with a friend of mine, let us call her Rachel, who was upset that I am very guarded about my emotions. According to Rachel, I need to be a lot more open in how I show my emotions for her.

And you can bet that this conversation came a week before Valentine’s day. I was very apprehensive when she told me this given the timing. I was expecting her to try to fleece me of the little money I have – we are both students in uni.

I was not too keen on what she had to say but curiosity got the better of me and I found myself prodding her to continue with her line of thought. Apparently, there are 5 or so many love languages: words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, quality time and physical touch. My mind’s cogwheels had already begun turning as I thought up ways to rebuff the gifts giving nonsense.

But Rachel is one of those girls who is a rare find; rather than ask for money or ask me to take her out, she is more interested in spending time together. She likes hiking and is quite shy. I think she’s an introvert. The more I think about it now, her love language is pretty clear for me to see but then again, hindsight…

Rachel told me she’s not necessarily keen on Valentine’s Day. If anything, she would prefer for us to just chill and catch her favourite series. I was pleasantly surprised. So what does she want did I do?

Well, I bought some wine. That is it, the peak of what I did. And yet this is one of the most wholesome Valentine’s Days I have ever experienced. I visited her hostel and we chilled and actually watched her favourite series. To my surprise, I wasn’t subjected to watching a chick-flick. She’s not the girlie type. We watched Raised by Wolves on Showmax.

Big man like me was chilling on the small sofa, cuddled and loved up. And she had set everything up. She had dinner done (yes, I did the dishes) and Showmax was on deck. Turns out she is a great listener. I had been raving to her about an awesome offer I was writing about and she decided to check it out. I mean, I was talking about how Showmax, had an awesome KSH 380 per month offer that was essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet style access to the entire library of movies and shows that they have. As if that weren’t enough, Showmax has a “pay for one month and get two more months extra” offer running. It’s the 3-in-1 offer.

I have to say, Showmax actually was part and parcel of the awesomeness of my February.