You always hear that: “There are two kinds of people in this world…” And with all the different “two kinds,” there ends up being thousands of kinds of people. And when all those overlap and mix together, you have billions of individuals. I guess that’s why we’re all unique. But I propose another two kinds of people, something that my relationship with Brad has recently made me realize.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who need to be loved, and those who need to love.

Sometimes when Brad and I argue, we both get caught up in trying to make the other person understand our point. We worry more about that than we do about trying to understand what the other person is saying. I always want B to just stop and say “Okay hon, this is silly, let’s just love each other and stop fighting.” I want him to think loving me is more important than getting his point across. And I think he wants me to do the same thing. Therefore, neither of us says anything, and we both keep driving our point into the ground.

I think that’s because we’re both need to be loved people. We love each other, and we love loving each other. But in the end, what we really need is to feel loved. That’s what makes it all worth it.

I know some need to love people though, and I can see striking differences between them and me. My mom is a need to love person. She’s been in many relationships, and in each of them she is always the lover, the nurturer. It gives her fulfillment to shower someone with love. I think in all of her past relationships, she has always loved more than she has been loved. It made her feel good to fully love another person, and it made that other person feel good to be fully loved.

That’s not to say that one type of person is better than the other. They’re just different. And that’s not to say that it’s black and white, one or the other; there are different levels of each. That’s why some couples get along so well: they’ve struck a comfortable balance between loving and being loved by each other.

However, I think there are more need to be loved people in the world than there are need to love people. Which means there are probably a lot of need to be loved people in relationships with each other.

Which, of course, is why Brad and I get so caught up in making ourselves heard when we argue. We’re trying so hard to be loved that we temporarily forget that maybe the fact that we love each other so much is just as important.