“What’s your love language, Louie?” Friends and students alike would often ask me this question. My answer would be, in true Atenean fashion, “It depends.”

The notion of “love languages” was popularized by American author and pastor Gary Chapman. He indicates five ways that people express and understand love, just like in a verbal language, namely: receiving gifts, physical touch, acts of service, quality time, and words of affirmation. One of Chapman’s main observations from his years of counselling is that our manner of expressing love is also the manner we expect to receive it. For instance, if I’m the type of person who loves through words of affirmation, then I generally expect others to love me by giving me words of affirmation too. I will probably not appreciate gifts as much as words of affirmation because gifts are not my love language. Friendships and romantic relationships often fall apart when love languages are misunderstood, or worse, when they are demanded from each other (“I want you to love me this way!”).

I’ve learned during this pandemic that there is a far more vital and fundamental way of expressing love that comes prior to Chapman’s love languages. It’s a love language that might not be as expressive as the others, and yet it renders all the others possible. I simply call it availability. Allow me to illustrate this from my experience in the last few months.

There were times during this pandemic when I was not in the best mental and emotional place. I couldn’t even articulate why I wasn’t feeling good (which is odd because I’m not normally at a loss for words). What’s worse was that I had a growing pile of work that needed to be done in preparation for online teaching. What helped me cope? It was when good friends simply told me, “Hey, we can talk,” “Hey, let’s have an e-numan later,” or “Hey, just send me a message if you need anything.” Even before we actually spent time together, I found that there was already something quite powerful and profound knowing that someone was there available for me. I had helpful colleagues who were always ready to entertain my incessant questions when I got lost figuring out Canvas, and when I felt discouraged about online teaching. I had friends who served as compassionate and non-judgmental sounding boards for my rawest feelings, especially the kind of feelings that I surely would have judged myself for. All they did was offer me the space to feel sad and confused, and when I took that offer, they sat with me through those negative emotions. In the end, I realized that the assurance of their presence was all that I really needed. I found myself in a better mental and emotional place in the space they made available for me.

I suppose this is what availability is all about: Being the space where people can utterly be themselves with you. To be available is about opening the doors of one’s life, so to speak, for anyone who wishes to find shelter from the storms of their own situations. It’s about making one’s self a “home” to another; to be someone people can approach without them feeling anxious to filter their words or to put up a polished front so that they wouldn’t be judged.

Availability is special because it doesn’t impose. You can imagine all the other love languages turning into tools of imposition that eventually burden rather than comfort. Gifts can turn into junk someone doesn’t need; physical touch can be unwanted; acts of service can be used as bargaining chips for future favors; quality time can become hollow, demanding, and inflexible; and unsolicited advice and empty affirmations can turn into distractions to a friend who just needs a listening ear. These distortions of the love languages happen when the lover’s need to express love becomes more important than the needs of the other. Ultimately, availability operates on listening to what the other person needs, and not on our insistence to “scream out” our well-intentioned but misplaced love languages. Surely we cannot completely detach ourselves from loving in the way we see fit, or even demanding reciprocation for the love we give. But love matures when reciprocation takes a back seat to the needs of the one we love.

This may seem like lofty talk, but as this pandemic continues to take its toll on us mentally and emotionally, I think we can all agree that we need community support more than ever. Being available to another person will help us see more clearly how to best give that support, rather than us acting on our own assumptions. That way, we do not become the centers of our own loving. After all, if love is to will another person’s good, then it only makes sense that the one we love, and not us, is the rightful focus of our loving.

I would often challenge my students with this thought, Hindi sapat ang magmahal nang todo; kailangan rin natin magmahal nang tama (It’s not enough to love intensely; we need to learn how to love properly). How do we know that we are “loving properly”? Be available to the one you love and listen. That’s why my answer to the question at the beginning of this piece is “It depends.” 

Louie Julian (AB PH ‘13, MA Theological Studies ‘17) is an instructor from the Department of Theology.