Introduction
We each carry a handful of gifts, and we spend them like currency to be let close. Some of us help—rides to appointments, papers filed, a hand on the back when the room is loud. Some provide—money when the month runs thin, groceries on the doorstep, a bed made for a hard weekend. Others fix, advise, listen like it’s their craft. Some cook. Some speak a word that reminds you you’re still bright. These are the everyday tenders of love.
You can call them love languages, but I resist the label. Categories make it neat, and people are not neat. What I’m speaking of is human scale—the way we trade time, skill, and tenderness for closeness, acceptance, inclusion. And here is the claim I want to make from the start: being loved for what you offer is still being loved for who you are—if the offering is honest. The difference is between an offering and an audition; between giving from a self already held, and giving to be held. That difference is where self‑compassion lives.
Intent divides the road. There is love, and there is validation. They wear similar coats, but one warms; the other itches.
Forget the schematic. Think of the ordinary offerings people bring: showing up with groceries; wiring a little money when the month runs thin; making broth; fixing a shelf; offering advice, ride, or refuge; listening like the night listens to the ocean; naming someone’s hidden brightness; building a plan where there was only panic; laughing in a way that turns a room hospitable. Call it caretaking, wisdom, provision, repair, presence, praise. These are the simple, human denominations we spend to purchase closeness, acceptance, inclusion, and the right to sit at each other’s tables.
These gifts are not lesser than the self. They are the self, translated into action. If a person is generous—money, time, skill—then generosity is not a trick; it is a facet of who they are. Loving someone for their generosity is still loving them. We do not have to make desire smaller than its real size.
If your love is only animatable in another’s gaze, it wasn’t only love—it was an exchange.
Why We Offer
The first question: Why am I offering this? Because people fall in love for a handful of reasons—the person as they are; the person as they make us feel; the person as they act upon our lives. I refuse the hierarchy that pretends only the first is holy. A book touches you not merely because of the author’s essence but because the pages do something to you. So do people. The doing is part of the being.
Still, intent divides the road. There is love, and there is validation. They wear similar coats, but one warms; the other itches.
The Litmus Test
Before I spend a currency on someone else, I ask one small, unromantic question:
Do I spend this on myself first?
-
Do I cook for myself when I’m alone?
-
Do I keep my own promises? Take my own advice?
-
Do I gift myself tenderness, time, and a life that fits?
-
Do I repair what I break in myself with the same urgency I use for others?
If the answer is mostly yes, then my giving is an overflow—a lake breaching its shore. If the answer is no, then I am bargaining. I am hoping the market will fill my cup at a favorable rate. That is not love’s arithmetic; that is deficit spending.
Self‑Compassion, Defined
Self‑compassion isn’t indulgence. It is the disciplined practice of treating yourself as you would treat someone you love when they are imperfect, hurting, or simply human. It rests on three pillars:
-
Kindness: speak to yourself with warmth rather than contempt.
-
Common humanity: remember that struggle is a shared condition, not your private failure.
-
Mindful honesty: notice what is here—feeling, need, limit—without dramatizing or denying.
From this soil, generosity grows without collapsing the giver. You can offer bread without starving yourself.
Do not trade yourself at a loss. Let your giving arise from a self already held—by you.
Is This Selfish?
To love yourself first is not selfish; it is honest accounting. Selfishness is extracting returns without placing anything of value on the table—taking the meal, never washing the dish; taking the listening, never practicing silence. But loving reciprocity is not an eye-for-an-eye ledger. It’s seasonal: sometimes you frontload care, sometimes you lean back into being cared for. Over time, the curve of the relationship should trend toward mutual nourishment. If the line never climbs, you are underwriting someone else’s avoidance with your life.
The Cook Who Couldn’t Eat
A woman tells me she used to cook—magnificently—but only for company. Her mother adored the feasts; now the mother is gone, and the kitchen is quiet as a sealed letter. She says she has no appetite to cook for herself. Grief is heavy; let us not tidy it with moral math. And yet, there is a hard edge of truth here: if your love is only animatable in another’s gaze, then it wasn’t only love—it was an exchange. You laid a banquet to be seen, to be needed, to be praised. Without witnesses, the stove goes cold.
This is not condemnation; it is diagnosis. A transactional habit formed in brighter seasons will ache in grief. The remedy is not to scold yourself for needing eyes. The remedy is to light the burner for you, at least sometimes. Make the soup that reminds you of your mother and eat it in the quiet, knowing the recipe didn’t belong to applause—it belonged to lineage, to you.
Healthy Transaction vs. Draining Trade
Let me be precise:
-
Healthy transaction: You are already nourished. You offer what is yours to give—skills, care, money, words—because it expresses who you are. You welcome reciprocity, but your worth does not swing on it. The exchange adds sweetness to an already edible life.
-
Draining trade: You are empty. You offer what you hope will purchase worth—care-giving as camouflage, gifts as bait, counsel as control. You keep a quiet ledger of resentments because the returns never match the invoice. It feels noble. It is hunger.
Love’s Ledger (A Practical Audit)
Here is a quick audit I use when my generosity feels tired:
-
Inventory: What do I reliably offer—money, meals, ideas, repair, presence, praise? Write it down like line items.
-
Liquidity: Which of these do I regularly spend on myself? Which are overdrafted?
-
Inflation: Where have my gifts lost value because I give them to avoid conflict or to secure proximity?
-
Counterfeit: Where am I performing a gift I don’t actually have the capacity to give?
-
Repricing: What boundary or ritual would restore fairness? (e.g., “I cook twice a week—for them and for me.” “Advice by request only.” “Money gifts have a cap.”)
What People Love You For
People may love you for:
-
Yourself: the strange beauty of your interior weather.
-
How you make them feel: safe, seen, enlivened.
-
What you offer: competence, care, resources, art.
These are not enemies. They braid. The work is not to purify love into a single strand but to ensure the braid isn’t strangling you.
Final Thoughts
By all means, spend your currencies. Bring your casseroles and your spare keys. Wire the emergency hundred. Show up with a socket wrench and a psalm. But do not trade yourself at a loss. Let your giving arise from a self already held—by you. That way, when the room empties and the applause sleeps, the stove is still warm. The soup is still yours.
.jpg)