How annoying, right? The thought of having to teach someone how to love me has made me uncomfortable from day one. It took me a while to figure out why it made me uncomfortable, but once I did, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. See, the reason why the thought of teaching someone how to love me makes me uncomfortable because I hate asking for things--scratch that I hate feeling like a burden. I think the two play hand in hand. I don’t want to ask for something (emotional or physical) because I’m afraid of the rejection. Disturbing the status quo brings me fear, but I’ve learned that in order to be happy, ya girl gotta open her mouth.

I’m a sucker for romance. I don’t know why. I do know that it is extremely stereotypically feminine of me, but I can’t help it. I love watching stupid romcoms, childish princess love stories, and reading books where the woman finds the man of her dreams. John Hughes and Nicholas Sparks were staples in my childhood the way Disney Channel and Tamagotchi’s are. For someone who loves romance and huge gestures like I do, I never truly experienced that life before and it’s because I never spoke the hell up.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think dramatic acts of love is how I can teach someone how to love me—its just one part of it. My true love language is words of affirmation. I need to feel safe, secure and supported at all times. If you’ve never taken the “Love Languages” quiz I highly recommend that you do, but in my personal completely unprofessional opinion, I think it needs one more category. It needs the John Hughes and Nicholas Sparks love language category.

All that fluffy, shove it down your throat, nauseatingly sweet stuff that is specifically designed for movies, I love it. No, I need it. Presents are great, but if they’re not wrapped in a bow and presented with all the love and admiration the world has to offer, it just doesn’t hit the same. The act of receiving a gift isn’t what I care about, it’s how the gift is given to me. I crave seeing the love, specialness, attentiveness and extraness that can accompany gift giving.

So here I was, finally admitting to myself what I wanted. I now know what I crave but now my problem is that I don’t speak up. Throughout my dating life, I started to accept the love that people were giving me in the way that they knew how. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but because it wasn’t in the way that I needed often times it left me feeling unfulfilled. That’s not my past partners fault, that’s my fault. How could I know exactly what I wanted, and still not speak up? That’s where John and Nick did me dirty. I grew up thinking that the right person would do all these things without me asking. I grew up thinking that one day it would click for whoever I was dating and the day that they truly loved me they would start fulfilling my fairy tale. My naïve little mind was disappointed situationship after situationship. Disclaimer: I’m specifically focusing on gift giving because it’s the holiday season, but this can be applied to so much. You can fold your partners clothes, clean the house and make dinner but they still go to bed sad that night because all they wanted to hear was “I love you”. You can buy the most extravagant gifts in the world and present them in the most over the top way, but your partner can be hyper aware that you haven’t hugged or kissed them in five hours. Every person is different; words of affirmation and physical touch make my heart soar and makes me feel safe, but romance is what I need from a relationship. Without romance I don’t feel special. So, I started speaking up.

In theory, speaking up should’ve solved all my problems, but in reality, it left me feeling worse. I spoke up and was met with “well that’s not just me” "i'll never think to do that" “you’re never happy” “you’re never satisfied” or worse the recounting of all the stuff that was done for me previously, which then made me feel guilty for asking for anything at all. Navigating what you want from a relationship is hard. For the longest time I felt guilty for wanting (what can easily be misinterpreted as) the surface level stuff but it’s not my surface level “stuff”. For me, forgetting the romance is like forgetting to season a 5 course meal, it could've been the best meal you've ever eaten, but now .... When I first came to terms with how I wanted to be treated I expected to get everything I wanted, simply by asking for it. Instead, I learned that asking may be the first step, but teaching is the next.

No one knows how to love you like you do. What I do believe is that creating paths of open communication, explicitly expressing what you like, being patient, realizing that it might not happen exactly how you’d want it to and developing new standards of love with your partner; can bring them one step closer to knowing how to love you the way you love you. This only works with someone who is receptive and two people who are trying to put in the work. This relationship stuff is difficult, not because it’s difficult to find someone worth doing all the work with, it's difficult because you must face yourself. You must be friends with yourself first to understand what the hell it is that you need. My self and I are getting reacquainted and manifesting what we want each and every day. I hope you can to.

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