We Autistic & Neurodivergent people may express love and experience love differently than neurotypicals.

Everyone knows of the book, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Neurotypicals read this book with the hopes of gaining a better understanding of their own romantic relationship.

You may have read The 5 Love Languages book and feel you don’t relate to any of the love languages, and feel like you express love in a different way than what the book says. I felt that way when I read the book. I’ve called it The 5 Neurotypical Love Languages since then.

So how do we neurodivergent and autistic folks express love and feel loved?

Here are some love languages that you may relate to.

1. Shared Special Interests

We may show love or feel loved by engaging in a shared interest activity with a loved one. Especially if we enjoy the interest with the same intensity.

When we are getting to know someone, we might try to find some common ground and find a special interest that we both share. It gives us something to talk about, and brings us great joy to share that special interest with the person we love.

Teaching our loved one about our special interest when they don't know anything about it (and a willing participant), or them teaching us about their interests, can help strengthen the bond between you and your loved one, and give you both a quality time activity to do together. Maybe you'll find a new shared special interest too.

We may express love in this way too, not only as a way to feel loved.

How Does the Shared Special Interest Love Language Differ from Neurotypicals?

This neurodivergent and autistic love language is not included in the 5 neurotypical love languages.

Neurotypicals might not find their interest to be an integral part of who they are like we do, so they can find it less important to engage in an activity or talk about something we both deeply enjoy.

2. Respecting Sensory Needs

Having our sensory needs, or needs to fidget, respected and accommodated can make us feel loved.

We may be sensory avoidant or sensory seeking, as we all have different sensory needs.

Our brains and sensory systems are just wired differently, and we may experience our senses differently than most neurotypicals.

Regulating our sensory needs can be difficult to do on our own. We may need less stimulation, or a lot of stimulation, so whatever we need, having our sensory needs respected can go a long way towards helping us feel loved.

If we are in a relationship with a fellow autistic and/or neurodivergent person, we may find that we may express this love language by respecting their needs to stim and fidget, and this can go a long way towards helping them feel loved.

How Does the Respecting Sensory Needs Language Differ from Neurotypicals?

This is another love language that is not part of the 5 neurotypical love languages.

Neurotypicals don’t usually get overwhelmed by too much sound, or have a need for a lot of auditory stimulation, so they can be level most of the time without it bothering them.

If we are in a relationship with a neurotypical, they may not understand how it feels to have sensory needs, but if they can respect the ways in which we need to calm ourselves, that can go a long way towards helping us feel loved and appreciated.

3. Autistic & Neurodivergent Quality Time

Spending quality time with a loved one by enjoying each other’s company while each of you does your own thing is one way we can experience love.

Quality time could be sitting in silence together or having conversations while doing separate things.

We neurodivergent and autistics can't always give someone 100% of our attention for hours, especially if we have ADHD.

Our brains might be going from one random thought to the next, so it may be hard to focus entirely on what our loved one is saying, especially if they are talking for a while.

Doing our own separate things while enjoying each other’s company alleviates that stress of needing to stay still listening intently to every word your loved one says. When we struggle to do this, we might feel bad and shame ourselves, or our neurotypical loved one might feel ignored, even if that’s not what we intend. We just can’t help it when our brains work like that.

Doing our own separate things and talking to each other may be another way we feel and express love. Sometimes our neurodivergent brains focus better when doing something else while engaging in a conversation, so we can better hear what our loved one says.

How Does the Quality Time Love Language Differ from Neurotypicals?

The quality time love language is also a love language of neurotypicals, but it means completely different things for us.

Neurotypicals feel their partner should give them 100% of their attention to feel like they got genuine time together doing things together, or just sitting at home having a conversation.

While it may be hard for our brains to give 100% of our focus to anything (unless we are hyperfocused when working on a special interest, of course), so when we are unable to hear every word our loved one says while giving them full devoted time and attention, the neurotypical can take that the wrong way.

If our loved one is a neurodivergent or autistic person, we may find both of us simply enjoy doing our own things while being in the same room, and that is good enough for us.

4. Special Interest Gifts

If our loved one gifts us with something related to our special interest, we may feel loved.

We may also show love by finding the perfect gift related to our loved one’s biggest interests.

Since special interests are one of our love languages, we can both give a gift that’s related to the special interests we share with a loved one, and fulfill the quality time love language by engaging in that shared special interest together. Win-win for everyone.

Receiving gifts related to our special interests can help us feel seen, appreciated, and loved.

Even if it is something that would help us stim and fidget to soothe our sensory needs. Gifts such as this can also show the Respecting Sensory Needs love language.

How Does the Special Interest Gifts Love Language Differ from Neurotypicals?

Gifts is on the list of 5 neurotypical love languages, so we share this in a way, just experience it differently.

Neurotypicals with the gift love language enjoy receiving gifts that they might enjoy, just as a ‘this made me think of you’ type gift. They might not have current hyperfixations and/or special interests like we do, so they might not be as interested in receiving gifts related to those things.

While we have this love language in common, as with most things, we experience and express this love language differently.

5. Spoon Replenishing

When a loved one helps us when we struggle the most, or respects our need for alone time so we can do what soothes us, this can help us replenish our spoons and make us feel loved.

Spoon replenishing is based on the Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino. People who are autistic, neurodivergent, disabled, and/or have a chronic illness may have limited amounts of energy available every day. The things we do during the day may take more energy to do than it would for a neurotypical, healthy, and able-bodied person to experience when doing the same things. For each activity that we do, it takes away a full unit of energy, and we may have things that give us a spoon back and make us feel renewed.

When we use up a larger amount of energy in daily existence, having a loved one who helps us when we need it the most, or at least respects the ways we need to replenish our spoons, can help us feel loved.

We all have different needs and differ on what helps us feel rejuvenated and like we have replenished the depleted energy.

If we have energy to give, helping our loved one replenish a spoon can help us express how much we love our loved one.

How Does the Spoon Replenishing Language Differ from Neurotypicals?

This neurodivergent and autistic love language is not part of the 5 love languages for neurotypicals.

The closest similar love language is the Acts of Service neurotypical love language.

For neurotypicals, doing something for them can help them feel loved. This might mean cooking their favorite meal, among many other things. Since neurotypicals don’t get their energy drained faster, they may have more than us to give.

Where an act of service for a neurotypical means we are doing something nice for them, or helping them take care of something, it’s a different experience for the neurodivergent brain.

Where we might need alone time to do what brings us joy, neurotypicals might not see alone time as something they need as strongly as we do.

In Conclusion

We autistic and neurodivergent people may feel loved, and express love, in different ways than our neurotypical loved one might experience.

If we are in a relationship with a fellow autistic and/or neurodivergent person, we may appreciate our loved ones and relationships even more after learning about the 5 Autistic & Neurodivergent Love Languages.

And if we are in a relationship with a neurotypical person, and these love languages resonate with you, maybe share the article with your loved one to help them understand your own way of thinking.

I hope this was a helpful article for you. I wish you the best with your romantic relationships, friendships, and family.