M
y dad shows his love
through gifting t-shirts.
It doesn’t matter the
occasion or the time of year or the
person receiving it — the man does it
out of pure joy. Because of this obses-
sion, it would seem rather intuitive
that his go-to holiday presents are t-
shirts galore, from the “Don’t speak
to me before my coffee” shirt for my
mother to the “Michigan Grandpa”
shirts for his father.
My dad’s knack for gifting t-shirts
kicked off 15 or so years ago, at the
height of March Madness with his
best friend Scott. The two met when
they were 18-year-old students at
the University of Michigan, living
as freshmen in Alice Lloyd, and they
quickly grew close when they rushed
a fraternity together. The two lived
together for the rest of their college
careers and eventually moved to the
same New York City suburb of Mill-
burn, N.J. They were, and still are, an
inseparable pair who love to create
fun in any situation, no matter the
circumstance.
Through the years, with a love of
sports and a passion for adrenaline,
Scott and my dad had done their fair
share of casual sports betting. So ev-
ery year when March rolled around,
they both cashed into a handful of
leagues with numerous potential
brackets on their side. After some
time, that tradition became boring
and repetitive. They no longer got a
kick out of just cheering for Michi-
gan or winning a few bucks here and
there. My dad and Scott needed to
do what they did best: Make some-
thing out of what had become not so
much.
Something to note about March
Madness is that there are always a
handful of lesser-known teams that
emerge out of the shadows as forces
to be reckoned with. They’re the
upset teams, the Cinderella stories,
the “Who beat Duke?!” soundbites.
They’re the schools my dad and
Scott loved to occasionally place wa-
gers on saying they’d go far, but their
fun usually ended there. But then
they found the perfect way to spice
things up: Become dedicated fans
of these underdog teams. And what
better way to become a dedicated fan
than by purchasing the team’s appar-
el for one another?
This was the early 2000s, and
the internet wasn’t the mass-mar-
ketplace that it is today. My dad and
Scott had to physically pay a visit to
the smaller universities whenever
they had the chance just to secure a
t-shirt. For example, when my dad
took a business trip to Nashville,
Tenn., he made a point to stop by
Belmont to get Scott a Bruins short
sleeve. He did the same with Florida
Gulf Coast when he went on vaca-
tion in Naples, Fla.
And with that, a tradition was
born. A small tradition that, with the
help of the internet, became larger,
more accessible and undoubtedly
significant with the years to come.
Since the pair began this ritual, they
extended the limitations to shirts
with famous movie quotes on them,
and individually have collected and
gifted over 50 t-shirts for the other
(all of which they wear).
The action of gifting Scott the
perfect short sleeve tee gave my dad
so much satisfaction that it began
to carry over to other significant re-
lationships in his life. After every
business trip, concert or outing, my
dad returned home with a shirt for
each member of my family, allowing
us all to start collections of our own.
Because of him, I now have a pile
full of obscure Grateful Dead tees, a
Longhorns sleep shirt and a Breck-
enridge v-neck, among others. I also
now have an extremely sentimental
Ruth Bader Ginsburg dancing bear
shirt — a gift that was sent to comfort
me and commemorate her after she
passed. Most recently, a shirt with
cartoon drawings of my beloved dogs
was added to my collection, which I
received following an anxiety attack
that occurred on the phone with
him. With each package came yet
another reminder that he loved me,
was thinking of me and was here for
me whenever, through whatever.
I’ve only bought a t-shirt as a gift
for someone a few times in my life,
with my dad being the primary re-
ceiver. But even so, gift-giving has
never exactly been my strong suit.
I never know what to get, where to
get it or what I’m even looking for.
I’m much better at showing my love
through articulating my emotions
rather than offering a tangible sym-
bol of it. Birthday cards and love let-
ters take me only minutes to write,
and when I feel something strong
enough, I feel compelled to verbalize
it in whatever capacity I see fit. I of-
ten don’t take vulnerability into con-
sideration — I see words as my ar-
mor and verbal support as my form
of expression.
I show my love by explicitly tell-
ing people I need them, I care about
them, I’d give anything in the world
just to spend time with them. This is a
drastically different experience than
gifting t-shirts. But then again, peo-
ple often have radically different and
niche ways of expressing their love.
This phenomenon is so persistent in
society that in 1992, the author Gary
Chapman created a theory explain-
ing these differences in a book titled
“The Five Love Languages”. Chap-
man theorizes that each member in
a relationship — romantic, platonic
or familial — offer love in the way
they want to receive it, with actions
falling into one of five so-called “lan-
guages”: physical touch, quality time,
acts of service, words of affirmation
and receiving gifts.
The book ended up gaining more
attention than anticipated, with
over 13 million copies sold world-
wide and a spot on The New York
Times’ best seller list since 2007.
Chapman’s theory of love languages
has received a significant amount
of praise from major media orga-
nizations and the general public,
becoming a common phrase in ev-
eryday conversation. The amount
of positive feedback and success
stories from reading the book
makes it evident that Chapman’s
theory has at least some truth to
it. And though I admit I have nev-
er read the book myself, I see his
general ideas play out in my every-
day life.
However, I didn’t consciously buy
into the idea of love languages for a
while — and that was a problem.
Because I have always been so
vocal with my feelings, I saw others
staying silent about theirs as a sign
of dislike or mistrust. I desperately
wanted my friends, family or signifi-
cant others to not only tell me how
they felt, but to shout it from the
rooftops. I needed to hear a confir-
mation that our relationship was real
because in my eyes without that ar-
ticulation, it wasn’t.
As I write this now, I am further
reminded of how backwards and
toxic that train of thought can be. I
failed to recognize that some peo-
ple have a harder time speaking in
a vulnerable capacity than others,
and that some people avoid it all to-
gether. But this absence of explicit
language doesn’t necessarily equate
to an absence of love — it just indi-
cates that they have a different way
of expressing it, a different love lan-
guage. My perspective on relation-
ships, kindness and care changed
significantly once I took a step back
and recognized that.
The intricate fabrics of love
BY ANDIE HOROWITZ, STATEMENT MANAGING EDITOR
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement
Wednesday, February 10th, 2021 — 5A
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