Invest in Love

When I was in high school my best friend shared an article with me that was in  O Magazine, it spoke about how as people we have different "currencies". The currency the article spoke about wasn't actually about money but essentially it was trying to illustrate that as people we value different things & because of this we will not always feel like someone cares about us when they are not using our own currency to show us that they care. For example, my major currency is time, if I like you or care about you I will go out of my way to make time for you. Actually, it happens automatically, I will tend to just WANT to spend time with you and do things with you. So if someone does not reciprocate this behaviour, it always feels like they don't care. Probably a lot of people have the same currency as me and this would become even more important to someone who does not actually have a lot of time to spare to see how it is they spend their time. Other people's currency is actual money! They equate you spending money on them as a way for you to show them that you care about them. But then, this sometimes makes me wonder if well someone has a lot of money anyway, does it actually mean anything if they spend money on you? Or perhaps they are merely "buying" your affection? I don't know...

In this article they spoke about the 5 languages of love, since then I've seen several books written on the topic. I can't actually recall all 5 of them but I remember: quality time, words of affection, buying gifts or something, and something about touching (meaning some people like being touched affectionately and kissed etc). I'm sure most of us have also heard the phrase quite a few times about how if someone doesn't love you the way you want it doesn't mean that they don't love you. Basically saying that because I don't use your currency or language of love, it doesn't mean that I don't love you. So essentially the key is to learn that person's method of showing love so you know when they are showing it and you don't feel slighted because they don't tell you that they love you everyday for you to feel loved.
Having said all that and knowing it, I still judge people on my  own currency. I can't help it. I make a lot of decisions about the people I have in my life based on this. Time. Do I have your attention? Do I have your time? And if I feel that I don't, I do assume that you don't care and that you have better things to do with your time, which I am not part of.
Obviously people can have more than one currency sometimes, it can be a combination of things. Words of affection are nice, I mean who doesn't like being told they are beautiful? Or that they are loved?
The difficulty in this lies in the constantly remembering what the other person's currency is. With some people in my life I need to constantly remind myself not to misinterpret their actions as them not caring, they just don't love that way or express their emotions how I do. So it becomes important not to judge people with YOUR ruler but to judge them with theirs. It is a hard thing to do, because your first instinct is always to whip out your ruler and say well if you cared about me you would tell me you love me everyday, or you would spend all your time with me, or you would buy me gifts and flowers and tell me you miss me all the time. Sometimes, you should consider that the person loves you the only way they KNOW how to love. And as individuals we learn how to love from different places: our parents, friends, family, romantic relationships...
I guess what I'm trying to say is similar to what I learned from a friend of mine, I don't know if she was right but it makes an awful lot of sense to me. She said to me that God can only judge you on what you know. It's one thing to do something wrong not knowing that it's wrong but once you find out it's wrong and you make a decision to keep doing it then that's something else. And actually this applies to relationships with people as well I think. If you do something that someone doesn't like and they don't make it a point to tell you that hey, I don't appreciate A,B and C and you keep doing it, it's not really your fault until they tell you. If you then decide to keep doing it anyway, then it becomes your problem.

Having said all that about learning other people's currencies, I think it's also important to show you care by showing them using THEIR currency. And, if they are decent human beings, they will really appreciate it. Me and my friend were recently speaking about this, and she shared with me how she trades cuddles with her boyfriend for things he wants done and I laughed because I trade kisses with mine because that's what I respond to. This came about when I was asking her if it's possible to change someone's currency for example to something that you understand and respond to. And she said she doesn't know but there are ways where you can try to teach someone what your currency is.  

Anyway, I wrote this because I had forgotten that as people we don't love the same. I had to remind myself again, because  I do forget, and I will get upset and feel unappreciated. So I'm reminding you as well, in case you forgot today like me.