Love Languages: Personal Preference and the Sense of Taste

The last sense to look at in terms of ways to communicate love, is the sense of taste.  The sense of taste is physically localized in the organ of the tongue.  Not only is the tongue the organ of taste, it is also one of the most sensitive organs of the body in terms of touch.  The detail that you can detect with your tongue is much greater than the detail you can feel with the tips of your fingers.  Just try feeling the back of your teeth with your tongue, then the back of your teeth with your fingers.  When you feel your teeth with your tongue,they feel magnified as compared to when you feel them with your fingers.  The surface of your teeth appear much more clearly in your imagination when you feel them with your tongue.

The properties of the tongue that make it so much more sensitive are its malleability - its softness - and moisture.  The composition of the tongue is not primarily intended to be an organ of touch however - it is primarily intended to be an organ of taste.  While the objectivity of the tongue as a tactile organ surpasses that of the fingers, its subjectivity in the realm of taste is surprising.

In order to taste something, you must already begin to assimilate it. In order to taste something, it must become moist, which means it must already undergo a physical change.  Odors are in air, flavors are in moisture.  Water has a greater destructuring effect on a non-aqueous physical reality than air.  When we put something in our mouth it is almost exclusively in order to destroy it and assimilate it.  Tasting is the last experience we have of something before we assimilate it.  We can still spit that something out if we decide it isn't good, or if we do not intend to assimilate it (something wine-tasters are known to do.)

When it comes to flavors, taste helps us recognize the harmonious composition of food as it compares to our own composition.  What we eat has an effect on what we become in terms of our physical nature and body.  Flavors that are sweet, spicy, salty, bitter, sour, etc. are from physical realities that have an effect on our digestion, our assimilation and on our own physical composition, harmony, and temperament.  Our preferences in taste reflect something of our preferred way of being, of our preferred way of acting and reacting.  This is perhaps one reason why our tastes are varied - behaviors and temperaments are different depending on the individual and natural composition of their bodies.  The way someone behaves depends upon both their nature and psychology, and on their personal choices.  We are not completely predetermined by our nature, by our body, but we are substantially conditioned by it.  Our personal choices, which result in our concrete actions and behaviors, depend partially upon what we are made of materially speaking and partially upon the purpose  we have discovered for our lives - our finality.  Our taste changes with time, and I think that has something - at least vaguely - to do with  changes in what we feel is important in life.  Often we even compare the events of our lives with flavors: "sweet victory," "bitter defeat," "then things went sour," "his reflections really spiced up the conversations."

So, if we look at gestures that imply taste, gestures that affect other peoples sense of taste, it is pretty obvious that this is the most analogical of gestures.  Taste with respect to food and drink is the immediate meaning of the sensation - but musical taste exists too, and so does taste in clothes, art, books, humor, etc; taste, analogically refers to one's personal preferences and interests.  So, as in the other gestures of love, let us try to distinguish between "tasteful gestures" at the different ethical levels.

At a basic level of respect, there is the recognition that everyone has different tastes, and that while imposing my own tastes on someone else is disrespectful, acknowledging that the tastes or interests of another person can legitimately differ from my own is basic respect.  The level of basic respect should enable us to avoid foolish and useless quarrels - but experience shows that living close to others requires more than just acknowledging legitimate differences in the domain of personal preferences and interests.  Certain preferences or interests might seem ridiculous or foolish to our own judgment - but if we do not learn to tolerate or resolve these differences, conflict is inevitable.

Since it is impossible to completely conceal our own preferences or interests from those who live close to us, we must adopt new gestures of taste that are open to friendship.  When we desire to begin a friendship with someone, we can start by sharing our preferences and interests, and we can try to discover their own preferences and interests.  This basic gesture of openness to friendship has to do with generalities - informing and being informed on basic likes and dislikes.  We usually don't start sharing our most unique and perhaps outrageous preferences or interests - but that will depend upon the personality of the other person.

Beyond discovering and revealing preferences and interests, there is the gesture of love which implies taking account of those preferences or interests in what we say or do to or for the person whom we love.  And beyond this simple gesture of love, the gesture of intimacy has to do with acquiring the tastes of the other person.  It is one thing to participate in an activity with someone because it interests them, and you want to support them (that is a gesture of presence) and another to learn to enjoy the activity itself.  It is one thing to sit next to someone while they watch their favorite sports program, and another thing to learn to enjoy that sports program with them.  While it is normal and healthy for a couple to have separate activities, it weighs down a close relationship when the persons involved do not occasionally choose to modify their personal preferences or interests in function of the other person.  Sometimes that acquired taste can be for something neither person has ever appreciated before.  It can be easier to acquire a taste for art, for example, when the friendship is strong.  And the developed appreciation for something beautiful or qualitative can be something special that fortifies a friendship.  This certainly touches the language of quality time, but quality time is a mix between presence and personal preferences.