How To Write A Love Letter
Very meaningful gifts with just a few words
Gifts are not my love language. I buy people utilitarian things when I’m reminded that they need them, which might be every other year, or eight months away from any significant date.
On the receiving side, I am partial to hugs, quality time, love letters or something very specific that I ask Brie to organize months in advance. My closet is FULL and I eventually want to be that lady who has one singular ornamental object and nothing else. (My friend’s mom’s great rule is that nothing decorative can be smaller than a grapefruit.) Anyway, what I am saying is that it would be antithetical to my entire ethos for me to foist a gift guide on you.
In lieu of purchased presents this year, I suggest writing everyone you love a love letter. The most generous kindness is to be described well. On celebratory days (birthdays, etc) I like to send a paragraph text, to friends, about why they’re great. Free flow, nothing overwrought. Just “you are kind, funny, good at dressing and a thrill to be around when you’ve had 3+ glasses of wine because we may end up atop scaffolding. I cannot live without you.” It touches somewhere the SMS “HBD” screen-swallowing balloons can’t reach. I have briefly considered creating a greeting card company for oddly specific salutations but enough with the commodification of everything.
I know there’s a memed tweet about how women just want one thing and it is to be described. Many years ago, one particularly rough break up came with the realization that the person I was seeing didn’t know me very well at all (and we were engaged!), so now I ask everyone for love letters every birthday and regularly prompt boyfriends to make descriptive lists about me. They don’t have to be compliments. In fact, please include the line items that are annoying and bad. I want to know that you’re paying attention. To be known by loved ones is sublime and true knowledge is a 360 degree endeavor.
We spend a lot of time performing to meet societal standards and the desire to be described comes from wanting both that work to be well perceived and transcended. Has it successfully made the trip from our interior into a knowable, seeable, real-world space? Performance is expected of all of us but overcoming or being honest about that acting role is the secret to contentment. Self-editing is a social norm (good manners are important) and we can dictate what output is received, but if we aren’t constantly editing that edit are we stuck with a disingenuous personality? Feedback from other people is a helpful tool. Imagine if it was delivered in a letter or, more efficiently, a bullet-pointed list? A dream for external processors.
There is a depth of knowing required to describe someone well. It’s why fights with parents and exes (friends or lovers) can be so particularly painful. We know each other very well, and can dip into old spats, scratch old scabs. It’s also why old people love pointing out how long they’ve been friends with their friends (myself included). Years have been weathered shaping ourselves and our relationships. Take some of that plot and plop it into a missive, letting them know you’re thinking adoringly of them.
And, finally, I don’t know what you do for work but I’ve been feeling a bit squeezed lately by a need to prove my mettle via data. Capitalism prefers tidy numbers but most of my great and helpful contributions to the world, work, friendships are intangible whatsits. You know where intangibles thrive? Love letters.
