The 5 Love Languages: Neurodivergent Version

(Just a friendly reminder to take this post with a grain of salt. I'm by no means unbiased, but I did my best to simply recount the different representations of neurodivergent affection that I've witnessed.)

We've all heard of Gary Chapman's books on the 5 love languages. No matter what "small group" you fall into, he has a book for you that explains the love languages in a way that can be easily implemented. Between words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time, and physical touch, there are tons of different ways that people show their love through these 5 major categories. To some extent, we all use these languages in different ways, but sometimes the exemplification of that love is a bit different than what's expected. Neurodivergents in particular can have some interesting ways of expressing their affection that others may not realize are actually a display of their love for the person.

In general, neurodivergents aren't known to have the most conventional approaches to things and it certainly can show in any display of how they love someone.

For example, when you compliment someone, you may use words that are commonly linked to things that are good; you use words with positive connotations. Examples might be "pretty," "beautiful," "smart," "kind," "nice," etc. Neurodivergents may not use this approach of showing their admiration or affection.

What if someone were to walk up to you and liken your hair color to that of a tree? What if they said you look like so-and-so? It may not strike you as a compliment so much as a comparison—a comparison that most likely will have you wondering if they meant it to be a positive or negative comment. I've found that it can be be alarming or off-putting because it's unidentifiable to many people as a compliment.

Neurodivergents can tend to be blunt, and combining that with forgetting that not everyone interprets things the way they do can mean you may get complimented via comparison. Oftentimes, you might not know if they like what you're being compared to. It's hard to identify, even for other neurodivergents. It's an unconventional way of approaching "words of affirmation," but that's often just how we show our love through our words.

What about acts of service? This one is also approached in different ways. For this one, I haven't noticed as many unconventional examples of this, but I have noticed that a lot of neurodivergents stop themselves before doing something for someone out of fear of them not being pleased by them doing it. For example, if they were to put something away for you, they may look at it and go to pick it up, but then stop, thinking about last time they tried to help you like that and you got upset with them because you weren't done. So they may ask, "can I put this away for you?" That's an easy example, but it can happen with things like going shopping for someone, cooking a meal for them, etc. When they're used to misinterpreting things and getting in trouble for it, they're usually more hesitant in doing things for people (This does apply to neurotypicals too, though. :) Everyone does it at some point).

Now for some gifts. For those of you who are the gifting type of person, maybe you've given someone you love a package of their favorite candy, a picture you drew, or some flowers you picked while outside. You might've spent time and thought on the present you gave, trying to tailor it to the person who you're giving it to. It's a special gift for them. You spend time on thinking of why you wanted to give this gift to this specific person—there's a reason behind this gift.

I'm not saying there's no reason behind neurodivergent gifts, but I will say we tend to have a different approach to it. Instead of the gift being tailored to the person, they may find something that they associate with happiness, with goodness, with beauty or something else and offer that to the person. The meaning behind the gift isn't because the person would like it; it's more commonly meant because "this is pretty, you are pretty, therefore, have the pretty object." Sometimes, this can seem like the kind of giving we see in younger children.

Think of how a kid may offer to share their favorite toy with another kid when he's trying to make friends. "Here, I like this. Do you want a turn with it?" Now imagine those two children grown up, sharing other random objects. That's how many neurodivergents show their affection.

As an example, I'm the kind of person who will offer one of my favorite stuffed animals to someone who needs to hug something. I've offered my favorite paperclips or rocks from my rock collection, knowing full-well I won't get them back. I'll offer food off my own plate (when it's not weird), but it doesn't often occur to me that other people don't show their affection like this. Gifts such as simple flowers or a person's favorite candy doesn't often occur to me—that's not how I show my affection. My form of gifting falls closer to sharing than it does to gifting sometimes and when it does fall along the lines of giving, I struggle with figuring out what they'd like, because my association with "good" is so different than others' sometimes.

Another form of this could also be when you find something in any of a myriad of ways and picked it up, giving them to someone because "I found this and I thought you'd like it." Neurotypical gifts are often a bit wacky but they have character all of their own if you're willing to look for it.

Quality time with a neurodivergent is also a little wacky at times. For a lot of neurotypicals, when they think of "quality time," they may think of actively engaging with a person for any length of time, whether you're going for a walk together or you're working on a project together and chatting as you do so. For neurodivergents, it can literally be just being in the same room as someone. Some people call this "parallel play." Essentially, you're next to each other—or just in the same room as the other person—doing your own thing while spending time with the other, enjoying their company.

Just a small note: this aggravates quite a few neurotypicals.

A lot of people, when they're trying to spend quality time with me, will try to talk with me. They'll keep bringing up topics of conversation and when I let them drop after 3 sentences or so, they get frustrated with me. In reality, I already feel that I'm spending time with them, but I'm not engaging with their form of "affection." Quality time is something in particular that is a bit harder to manage when both parties approach it differently.

And finally, the last love language—physical touch. This one in particular can be hard for a lot of neurodivergents. I've met some that love it, but many others get overstimulated by it way too quickly and would rather avoid it. For some, it causes some pain; for others, it causes a spark of pleasure. I've met others still that have no preference as to one thing or another.

As with the other love languages, the neurodivergent approach to this isn't usually the same as the neurotypical approach (what a surprise, right?). Some neurodivergents are super huggy, but others don't really like hugs, even though they love physical touch. One big thing about physical touch is there are many ways to approach it.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of hugs, but I've been known to poke people in the shoulder or nudge them in some way. One particular example would be how me and a friend would hit our shoulders on each other. While a few people asked if it hurt, that was how we showed our affection. We'd hip-check each other or knock shoulders and just push against each other for a moment. It looked aggressive, but that wasn't the intent behind it. (For anyone wondering about if we ever got hurt doing it... yes. I'd advise aiming for hitting the soft part of your upper arm on the other person's upper arm. Not ACTUALLY hitting the shoulders on each other. You can lean using your shoulder after the initial impact.)

Overall, are we still falling into the basic love language categories? I'd say so. But more often than not, we're doing it in a way that doesn't strike people as "affectionate." We can seem standoffish, callous, confusing, aggressive, and many other things when in reality, we don't mean to be. We actually are just trying to show you just how much we care about you and we want to express it as ourselves, not as the fake us we pretend to be in order to fit in.

We love you. Maybe one day you can see all the ways we show it.