{"id":115319,"date":"2026-02-14T10:29:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=115319"},"modified":"2026-02-14T10:29:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:29:51","slug":"prince-adu-owusu-beyond-flowers-and-grand-gestures-how-do-you-want-to-be-loved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=115319","title":{"rendered":"Prince Adu-Owusu: Beyond flowers and grand gestures \u2014 How do you want to be loved?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>4 Minute, 42 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
\n

Valentine\u2019s Day has a way of making love feel loud. Restaurants fill up. Flowers become currency. People rush to prove something, sometimes to others, sometimes to themselves. And in all that noise, I have realised we rarely pause to ask the most important question of all.<\/p>\n

Not who do you love.
Not how much do you love.
But how do you want to be loved?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question I didn\u2019t always know how to ask. For a long time, I thought love was only something you showed by being constantly present, always available, always reachable, always there. I believed that if you truly cared about someone, you made time no matter what. You showed up, even when it cost you something.<\/p>\n

That belief came from experience. From loving deeply. From giving honestly. From being the one who checked in, who cared loudly, who stayed even when things became unclear. I thought that was what love demanded.<\/p>\n

Until I asked her.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t during an argument. It wasn\u2019t even a heavy moment. It was one of those quiet conversations where you\u2019re not trying to impress each other anymore, you\u2019re just trying to understand.<\/p>\n

I asked her whether she expected the man she loved to be available all the time.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n

She said she didn\u2019t expect constant availability, because life doesn\u2019t work that way. People have responsibilities. People get busy. People disappear into their own worlds sometimes, not because they don\u2019t care, but because they are human. What mattered to her wasn\u2019t constant access. It was communication.<\/p>\n

She believed that love didn\u2019t mean demanding someone\u2019s time whenever you felt like it. Love meant being informed. Being considered. Being told, \u201cI won\u2019t be around now, but I\u2019ll come back to you when I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

That answer stayed with me.<\/p>\n

So I pushed further. I brought up that popular saying we all hear, that if someone truly loves you, they will always make time for you, no matter what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t completely agree.<\/p>\n

In her view, love wasn\u2019t about forcing time out of moments that didn\u2019t allow it. It was about understanding when time could be given freely and meaningfully. Love wasn\u2019t proven by interruption, but by intention.<\/p>\n

That was when something shifted in me.<\/p>\n

I realised how often we confuse love with access. How easily we mistake availability for commitment. How we measure affection by response times instead of honesty. And how many relationships collapse under the weight of expectations that were never discussed. What she described wasn\u2019t cold love. It wasn\u2019t distant love. It was secure love.<\/p>\n

The kind of love that doesn\u2019t panic when silence appears. The kind that trusts intention more than performance. The kind that allows two people to exist fully without losing themselves. That conversation forced me to reflect on my own experiences.<\/p>\n

I have loved with everything I had. I gave my time, my care, my patience, fully believing that if I showed up consistently and wholeheartedly, it would be enough to hold things together. I did what I believed love required. Sometimes it was enough. Sometimes it wasn\u2019t. And when it wasn\u2019t, the confusion hurt the most. Because in my mind, love was meant to be simple. You care. You show up. You stay.<\/p>\n

But love, I\u2019ve learned, is not one-size-fits-all.<\/p>\n

Some people feel loved through constant presence. Others feel loved through reassurance. Some need words. Others need actions. Some need space, not because they are running away, but because that is where they grow best. The problem is not loving too much. The problem is loving without understanding how the other person receives love.<\/p>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day often celebrates the grand gesture. The surprise date. The expensive gift. The public display. But real love is built in quieter moments, when two people are honest enough to ask difficult questions and patient enough to listen to the answers. That\u2019s what stayed with me from that conversation.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t ask for perfection. She didn\u2019t ask for constant attention. She didn\u2019t ask to be placed above everything else. What she wanted was safety. Honesty. Consistency.<\/p>\n

A love where two people could grow individually without drifting apart. A love that didn\u2019t rush, but also didn\u2019t leave room for doubt. A love that understood that being busy didn\u2019t mean being absent, and needing space didn\u2019t mean withdrawing care.<\/p>\n

And I realised something else too.<\/p>\n

Love isn\u2019t just about how deeply you feel. It\u2019s about how clearly you communicate. It\u2019s about asking before assuming. It\u2019s about listening without preparing your defence. When I look at love now, especially around Valentine\u2019s Day, I see it differently. I no longer see it as something to perform or prove. I see it as a shared understanding, built slowly, protected carefully, and sustained by honesty.<\/p>\n

So if I had to ask that question again, not just to her but to anyone, I would ask it gently, without expectation.<\/p>\n

How do you want to be loved?<\/p>\n

Not so I can impress you.
Not so I can keep you.
But so I can meet you where you are, not where I assume you should be.<\/p>\n

Because love, when it is real, doesn\u2019t demand.
It listens.
It adjusts.
It grows.<\/p>\n

And sometimes, that quiet understanding is more powerful than any Valentine\u2019s gesture could ever be.<\/p>\n

*********<\/p>\n

The writer is an online journalist and a freelance graphic designer with The Multimedia Group.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Valentine\u2019s Day has a way of making love feel loud. Restaurants fill up. Flowers become currency. People rush to prove something, sometimes to others, sometimes to themselves. And in all that noise, I have realised we rarely pause to ask the most important question of all.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2236,1370,6585,1883,477,10,9,2296,16892],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hp-lifestyle-2","category-lifestyle","category-love","category-national","category-opinion","category-politics","category-popular","category-relationships","category-valentine-day"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}