But all love must be expressed materially, because we are not psychic. We never get to truly know how another person feels about us. We can only infer it from their actions. And "love languages" are just ways of categorizing which actions make a person feel loved. For some it is being held; For some it is being told; For some it is having things done for them; For some it is receiving gifts. The last one can be problematic if what is wanted are expensive gifts, but as a love languages the point is generally not the value of the gift but the fact of a gift being given, such that the gifts themselves might cost less than you could earn in say, the time it took to give someone a really good cuddle, or to compose a flowery poem.