Exotic Love Languages
What I learned about loving from the Greeks
I like to play a game, which is to find esoteric, obscure, wild, or strangely specific love languages.
I have a party idea in mind, in which a lot of people get together, draw cards for esoteric love languages, and practice showing those love languages to people for the evening .
I do think it is cool to practice doing things you’d never done before, that is outside of what feels like your range of “choices” in stake-free settings, to build the muscle of doing things outside of your normal imagination and seeing how it lands on people.
Sometimes the things you can imagine doing actually are actually much more subtle or much more abrasive than you had in mind, and the things that seem “impossible, too direct, too quiet, too loud, too rude, or too intense” for you to do actually make people happy!
It can be hard to say without trying it out.
The list list of exotic love languages is a work in progress, as is this corresponding card deck.
The love languages have to be real. They have to be caught in the wild like Pokémon. They can’t actually be completely made up. They have to be generated from real people having real interactions, and they have to land and feel good somehow.
I will tell you about two new love languages I learned from the Greeks that had touched me quite deeply, such that I am still thinking about them six months later.
First of all, to set the mood, check out this art in a medical office. Kind of fun. The signature of the artist is covered up by that chair.
I love this juxtaposition! The earthy drawing, and then the laser machine. The modern that does not forget the ancient.
Secondly, food. Greece has good food. It is very healthy. Exciting kebabs and greek salads and things like this, but unlike Italians they do not by default serve bread with everything.
New Love Language Number One
I did not expect the menus to have as an offering a plain toasted turkey and cheese, or ham and cheese sandwich, with chips. This wasn’t on a kids’ menu, and wasn’t portioned for a kid.
This also wasn’t a one-off. This was an offering in many restaurants, and not just the tourist-y ones.
Look:
These were surprisingly good — consistently 7/10 or higher for these as far as little sandwiches go, and very affordable. I ordered these a few times. Why would I do that, when there is so much good Greek food for me to try?
Well—that’s where the love comes in, I think.
Now, I never asked anybody about this, so this is entirely conjecture.
But I was thinking about this — by the time a grown adult human is ordering a little turkey sandwich at a restaurant — something has happened. Either they are hungover, or their stomach hurts, or they had been awake all night, or they are having a weird health issue, or they are heartbroken, or they missed church, or they got possessed —
Any number of things could have happened. I was touched that the country seemed prepared for this. It felt like “oh yeah a thing happened to you. here you go.”
This felt particularly planned out also because a lot of Greek food, in its normal state, can have some acids like tomatoes, and doesn’t expect to be eaten with bread. This is fine for 99% of days. I got quite healthy eating just the greek food without modifications.
I had noticed that I actually do miss not just these sandwiches, but the entire arc around being able to just go out, pay $6, and get a very plain but yummy sandwich like this, and then just sit there with my sandwich for an hour.
Now, it’s possible that the country had decided that having these sandwiches is a good business decision somehow, and this has nothing to do with consoling the sad, the wretched, and the hungover.
If you know the truth, do let me know. But I do like to think that some of the love I feel at least feels real!
New Love Language Number Two
The reason why my theory above has credibility, at least with me, is because of general concern that waiters have shown me about what I was eating.
I have seen great hospitality in Italy, where a waiter, on seeing that there was too much food on the table for my party, came over with a new middle piece for the table and very quickly rearranged the table to make it larger for us, without any promoting or questions.
Perhaps people do what I am about to describe elsewhere around the world. I had experienced it in Greece, but I have no real reason to think it is a Greek thing.
When I was in Greece, the waiters seemed to be paying attention not just to if I was ordering too much food for my own good (which I had experienced before in various places) — but they also seemed to be paying attention to how the food is going to assemble together in my stomach, what time of day it is, what I looked like I was going to be doing that day, which way the wind was blowing, how the sun was striking the plate through the window…
They seemed to be doing a quick multivariable calculation around if what I am doing is Allowed or if Oh Dear they really should stop me right now from making a mistake.
One man asked me if I was going to be doing sport later that day before considering what to recommend to me.
I did find it very sweet and also I was impressed by their thumos around speaking their mind.
One intriguing calculation happened on my last day in Athens, when I was eating an olive-oil based orangey-chocolate cake.
This cake was delicious and fascinating.
Now, few things grow in Greece, but the olives grow even in the rental car parking lots.
If I looked over at someone, and they looked like they were spending a lot of time “being Greek” — that was my surest way of knowing if they were Greek. If I was not sure, and thought “well they could be but I really cannot tell,” when the person spoke, out would come Spanish, German, or English — but not Greek.
I did not know what this “being Greek” entailed, exactly, or why it worked well for me as a predictor of Greekness, but I had a suspicion that it had something to do with digesting a lot of olive oil from three days before.
There was a lot of olive oil everywhere and in everything.
Including in my chocolate cake.
The waitress asked me if anybody else was coming to eat the cake with me, and I said no, just me.
I think I caught the waitress doing a quick calculation around me and this cake. It was noon, I was ordering just the cake and some milk because they weren’t serving coffee. I did have my luggage with me.
So, okay, this made sense as a particularly indulgent late breakfast if I hadn’t had breakfast that day (a likely scenario because of the luggage I was carrying) and if I were to be on a plane, I wouldn’t be expected to do any physical activity later or have more food for hours.
After what seemed like a moment of calculation and observation, she wrote down my order.
There was a holistic warmth around the entire interaction.
So how would we label our two new love languages?
The first one has something to do with, not quite preventative-care, more like existential after-care. A sort of contending with the fact that people experience existential crises, or actual crises in the existential sphere, and may require care for this, and that this can happen kind of randomly or unexpectedly.
One thing I appreciated about Greece was that it felt like a nice place to go if I was experiencing lots of random pains that were not caused by Greece and were not necessarily Greek-shaped. It felt friendly to other-worldly pains.
This felt different from my experience in Berlin. Berlin felt like it had lots of solutions to lots of problems figured out (toothpaste right at the hostel, for 2 euros!) and was generally comfortable, but if I had a problem that a solution was not sorted out for, it seemed like the ethos was — what have I done and what have I gotten myself into, such that I ended up with such a degree of problem such that their solutions are no longer adequate to address it?
(………..You can tell I am the sort of person who jaywalks in Germany by accident….This one time I showed up at a concert venue with luggage and created a micro-disaster, or an outright disaster depending on who you ask…………)
Greece seemed like it had some resources it was willing to give out for catastrophic-scale problems that it had not much to do with, as if it was predicting high unpredictability in its models of how people are.
That is why Athens is either #1 or #2 as a destination in my Eurotripping in Europe For Sadgirls Guide. (Prague is another contender for the top spot.)
Now, the second love language. It felt like a holistic appraisal of my well-being, even after I were to leave the establishment and be outside of the restaurant’s jurisdiction of care. It felt like it was making sure I would be able to have a good day, even after I left. It wasn’t pushy, and I was able to override any suggestions, but it was still thumotic enough such that if I let go of control and let the process run on autopilot, it would both happen, and a good and relatively healthy thing would be happening to me.
So now we have,
1. existential aftercare
2. thumotic hospitality
And then if we flesh out examples, we can have something like,
Existential Aftercare
Keeping a stock of nonperishables or frozen foods to be able to offer someone a plain, comforting meal when they seem out of sorts.
Keeping plain snacks (crackers, toast) around.
Keeping a stash of cozy blankets or socks for guests who look like they need comfort.
Creating a quiet, safe space for someone to retreat to without questions.
Sending a gentle, “thinking of you” message when a friend seems withdrawn.
Bringing a cup of tea or water to someone who looks overwhelmed.
Sitting quietly with someone who’s having a hard day, without trying to cheer them up.
Giving someone a ride home when they seem too tired or sad to navigate transit.
Letting someone nap on your couch after a rough night.
Offering a simple distraction, like a puzzle or coloring book, when someone is anxious.
Loaning a hoodie to someone who’s feeling fragile or cold.
Noticing when someone needs a break and quietly covering for them.
Offering to run a small errand for someone who seems depleted that is easy enough for you but might feel overwhelming for them in the moment, to take it off their plate as a thing to think about.
Having phone chargers in an easy-to-see place, so that people don’t have to think about when to ask you for a charger, or be embarrassed asking for a charger and admitting they mismanaged their battery-timing.
Thumotic Hospitality
Setting up a signature drink for your event that has an alcohol content and alcohol type that vibes well with the rest of your event.
Set up lighting such that people can sit around and not be annoyed by it for a long time.
Delegating somebody to ask and notice if everyone has everything they need, if you expect to be focused on other aspects of hosting.
Having things like plants and nice objects around, so that people have things they can pay attention to and focus on when there are delays, or they are waiting for something to happen (waiting for everyone to rally for an activity to start, or waiting for a food or drink to be served).
Keeping in mind people’s natural tendencies to experience sunlight transitions as signifiers of other transitions (sunset and twilight for day-long events).
Keeping in mind people’s ebbs and flows in energy, including for both casual exercise and reclining.
That’s it for now!
If you have an esoteric love language you would like to submit for my list, message me!
