Why is peeling an orange the ultimate love language? (2024)

For a creative writing exercise in college, our professor made us bring an orange to class. “Describe its exact colour, its texture, write about the way it feels in your mouth,” he said. “Is it more sour or sweet? Does it leave your hands sticky?” For some unknown reason, writers and poets have long been drawn to the symbol of oranges. In Jeanette Winterson’s novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985), they are a recurring motif representing heterosexuality. In the 1992 poem The Orange, Wendy Cope writes about sharing an orange with two friends: “And that orange it made me so happy / as ordinary things often do.” In one of my favourite poems, also titled Oranges, Jean Little writes: “When Emily peels an orange, she tears holes in it / Juice squirts in all directions / “Kate,” she says, “I don’t know how you do it!” / Emily is my best friend / I hope she never learns how to peel oranges.”

As the internet joins writers in their obsession with oranges, the orange peel theory, which originated on Tiktok, presents a simple question: would your partner peel an orange for you? Of course, it is not too much to ask for. If anything—many have pointed out—it is the bare minimum. Peeling an orange takes about two minutes and requires no sacrifice or trouble. So, why is the internet flooded with videos of people scrambling to ask their partners to peel an orange (some of which, surprisingly, end badly)?