There are five love languages—five ways people receive and express love. If you believe the framework, they are: 1) words of affirmation, 2) quality time, 3) acts of service, 4) physical touch, and 5) receiving gifts. Receiving gifts is the one love language everyone pretends not to have. It sounds materialistic. It sounds unsentimental. Like needing proof of love, rendered in three dimensions.
And yet, even people who insist they’re “not a gift person” respond to the right object. Because a good gift isn’t about the thing itself. It’s about translation. Cashmere is physical touch, articulated. A shared experience is quality time, pre-meditated. A knife that doesn’t brown apples and avocados is an act of service disguised as kitchenware.
Valentine’s Day, for all its pageantry and commercial anxiety, asks a genuinely useful question: Do you know what the person you love loves? Do you know how they register care?
Even people who insist they’re “not a gift person” respond to the right object.
Some people listen for words. These are the ones who remember phrasing—the exact line you dropped in conversation that you thought no one would recall. Say something precise—not “You look nice” but “That color makes you look like you’ve just had good news”—and they’ll carry it with them for years. Exact language is proof of being seen.
For them, the gift that lands isn’t obvious. It isn’t jewelry with an engraving, which always feels like affixing a press release to affection. It’s something like a signed first edition from the press run they mentioned once, the edition they said was the only one that mattered. Or a vintage scarf in the exact palette they once admired in passing, folded precisely the way they’d described it. The point isn’t luxury. It’s evidence. Proof that you were listening when nothing was being asked of you.
Then there are the people whose language is time. Not planned time, exactly, but hours that feel deliberately protected from the chaos of life. They’re quieter: a reservation at the restaurant you both discovered on a whim, a weekend at a tucked-away country inn neither of you knew existed, or a handpicked bottle of wine to drink while you finally finish that book you both started together. The object is incidental. It’s a container for moments you haven’t yet experienced but which will feel inevitable in retrospect.
The point isn’t luxury. It’s evidence. Proof that you were listening when nothing was being asked of you.
Then there are the acts-of-service people, who experience love as a reduction in friction. They notice inefficiencies the way others notice décor. For them, romance looks suspiciously practical. A programmable coffee maker so mornings require one less decision. An object that makes a daily task marginally easier says: I saw what was irritating you, and I paid attention.
There are also people who process the world through their hands. They care about texture, weight, softness. They know immediately whether something will become indispensable or quietly relegated to a drawer. Sheets that improve with time. A robe substantial enough to feel reassuring. A scarf so soft it becomes habitual. For them, the object functions as a proxy. It’s touch, translated.
And then there are the people for whom objects themselves are the language. Not because they are shallow—quite the opposite. They are precise. They care about details others dismiss. They don’t need a gift to solve a problem or create a ritual; they need it to be chosen deliberately. A vintage object, not to use but to possess for its beauty. A pen that writes exactly the way they like. A specific edition because of the artwork on the cover. For them, the object is proof. It says: I know you well enough to be this exact.
The love languages, like most pop-psych frameworks, are less about expression than about recognition. They don’t tell you how to love someone; they tell you how they notice being loved. Objects are simply translators. Cashmere isn’t romantic unless touch is the dialect. A book only matters if words are the currency.
The best Valentine’s gifts don’t arrive with a thesis. They simply demonstrate—quietly, convincingly—that you know how to speak in a way the other person actually understands.
Jennifer Noyes is the Editor and Chief Merchandiser at AIR MAIL’s AIR SUPPLY