There's something very now about the way love languages took over dating culture, a tidy five-point system that promises to solve the messiest parts of human connection in the time it takes to send a voice note. But when "I did your love language" becomes a reason to stop trying harder, or a way to avoid the harder conversations about stress, labour, and what we actually need from each other, the framework stops being helpful and starts being a wall. Is it possible that our obsession with compatibility labels is making us worse at the slow, unglamorous work of actually loving someone?