I love you

it's all about context. making eye contact, physical touch, on a date - romantic love screaming "DRIVE SAFE, LOVE YA" at someone leaving the house - family love (repeat as necessary for an infinite number of scenarios) >How can you tell if someone friend-zoned you?😌😫 there are some things the English language cannot solve, my friend

“I love you.” Versus “Love you, bro!” One has clear intention, the other is casual and informal. How to be romantic with your partner versus how the boys express love for one another.

the majority of people only use "i love you" to represent romantic love or family love. There is a smaller percentage of people who use "i love you" in a friendship or spiritual context but it's obvious from the situation and level of intimacy that it is not romantic.

In American English, at least, we say we love a lot of things! The word “love” is used fairly freely here. But as others said, context is important. Eye contact, saying “I love you” with emphasis on the word love, speaking slowly or quietly, holding your hand or offering some other kind of physical touch, are all indicators that the person means they love you romantically. To my friends, I’d likely say “I love you bitch!” Or “love ya” or something similar. Especially if the person says the full phrase “I love you,” that indicates more romantic love. “Love you” or “love ya” either indicates a platonic or familial kind of love, or if you’re in a relationship with someone and they say it like that, they might be angry with you, lol.

Generally you drop the I for platonic but there isn't really a set way of doing it. You can use "love you" for being romantic and you can use "I love you" for platonic love. It's just context based.

The friend-zone thing is something you probably should find the courage to ask about. I don’t friend-zone people, I become their friend and then “wait and see” how I feel as I get to know them. I have developed romantic feelings for a few people I originally was not attracted to. Some may truly decide day-one that the person in question will only ever be a friend. There are many ways that someone can develop romantic/sexual love as well. Demi- and Sapio- sexual being two different approaches.

Are you native German?  There’s really so many connotations the phrase „I love you“ can take. For English it is soooo much more about context, tone, and emphasis than just the words. „Oh my gosh you are hilarious, I love you.“ is something I’d say to a friend that I feel warm towards. „I love you so much.“ in a softer, more earnest tone is something I would tell a romantic partner or a family member who is perhaps going through something. I mean, „friend zoning“ to me is already a problematic term because I think being someone’s friends is just a good as being a romantic endeavor, but, you’d know if someone „loves you“ in a romantic way by way more than the words.   They would engage with you in a way that shows they want to be around them, they would probably initiate regular plans and likely want to be more physically close to you (if that’s a thing for them/you). It’s pretty easy to tell through body language and general communication how someone wants to connect with you.  It’s also pretty cool these days to just openly communicate with people about these things. 

a lot of the time the distinction people make is 'love you but not *in love with* you'. but that only tends to come up during those lets-clear-the-air conversations, so it doesn't help you much if you're just trying to read the tea leaves. i guess english kind of forces us to have those 'what's really going on here' conversations, to clarify ;-) it's pretty unlikely that someone would tell a romantic interest 'i'm *in love with* you'.

“How can you tell if someone friend zoned you?” Tell them how you feel about them. “I like you.” “I’d like to date you.” etc etc And they should likely make it clear at that point how they feel about you. Or you can hang out with them until the end of time and be actually friend zoned because you never confessed your feelings out of fear of losing a friend.

There just isn’t a distinction. Plenty of languages have different words for stuff that are one thing in another. For example you say platonic love to refer to family and friends, but in Greek there is a difference between Romantic Love (Eros), Familial Love (Storge), and friendship love (Storge) But besides that, it would be obvious in context what type of love you’re talking about. I would hope that you don’t mean romantic love when talking about a parent or a sibling. You generally don’t say “I love you” to most friends, you would only really say it to VERY close friends. Even then your relationship would be obvious to the two of you. When a distinction is needed, you can say “I’m in love with you” to mean romantic love specifically. You could also say some variation of “I love you but I’m not in love with you” or “I love you but I’m also in love with you”

I'm curious about what your first language is and the ways of conveying 'I love you' to family members, parent and friends. Can you elaborate on that?

You often can’t. It’s partly why there is so much confusion and anxiety regarding courting culture in the US. Some of it is contextual, like if they clarify or if it’s in a family context but it’s not always obvious, especially with very close friends and with gay/lesbian/LGBTQ relationships.

Someone who is friend-zoning it would clarify their statement. “I love you as a friend.” “I love you but I’m not in love with you.” Statements like that. Otherwise I rely on context clues. I don’t assume my family members are openly engaging in incestuous behavior and I don’t assume my friends would say “I love you” in a romantic way out of nowhere.

So, as a starting clarification: To be friend-zoned, you must first clearly attempt to be something else. For example, by confessing your feelings outright and asking if you can convert the relationship to a romantic one (not in those words). Given that, if we assume the other person's response is, "I love you," it will probably be either, "I love you, too" (in which case, assume it's romantic), or some version of, "I love you, but..." such as: \- I love you like a brother/sister \- I love you, but not in the same way \- I love you, too, but I don't think we mean the same thing \- I love all of my friends (but I don't want to date you) etc. If you haven't clarified that you want a relationship (or type of love) other than what your relationship with the person already implies, then "I love you" will automatically mean the type of love that your relationship already implies. If you tell your sibling, "I love you," and they wonder whether you mean familial or romantic love, there's already something really weird happening in that relationship. If you tell your best friend, "I love you," they will assume you mean "as friends, maybe adoptive family members," unless you go out of your way to make it clear that you're making a love confession. This might have something to do with why big, showy or intensely intimate and romantic declarations of love are so popular. You can't communicate the difference with words alone. We have a similar problem with "like," in that "I like you," can mean "we should be friends" or "I want to date you." This is childishly solved by saying, "I *like* like you," but once you're out of high school, that becomes sort of awkward to say.

To me “I love you” feels very strong. I would not say this to my friends, except maybe a very close, longtime friend. Even then, it would probably be “love you.” “I love you” would be for my parents, wife, and kids.

It's just based on who you are speaking with. If it's a person with whom you're in a romantic relationship, it's romantic. If it's a person who you're in a platonic relationship with, it's platonic. Hopefully you have some other clues about whether or not you're being friend-zoned. 😂

For the first time it is said, the clearest distinction is how serious or casual someone says it. If a coworker brings me a cup of coffee I might say "I love you" in place of thank you, but the context is clearly not romantic or serious at all (even if I use a serious tone of voice). A platonic unserious "I love you" is something a person doesn't expect to be replied to in the same manner, as well. In the example of getting a cup of coffee, I would expect the coworker to reply "you're welcome" or "I hope your meeting goes well" or something else, but not anything with "love" in it. Someone who is aware you have romantic intent but is not romantically interested will avoid saying "love" to you. Native english speakers are well aware that the language can sound ambiguous. The only possible ambiguity is if they don't know you're romantically interested. But overall, if the first time you hear "I love you" is directly after you hand someone an unserious present, like a tea or coffee, or after you fix something for them? It isn't romantic.

This is HEAVILY culture/region dependent. For some people "love" is a very special word reserved for special people and circumstances. For others, "love" is a hugely flexible and nonspecific term that is used almost every day. I know people who say "love you" as a casual farewell between friends.

Someone who is intentionally friend zoning you will not tell you they love you. There is too much risk that you would misconstrue it as romantic love.

\>> How can you tell if someone friend-zoned you? The socially acceptable, time-tested way to friend-zone someone is, "I love you like a brother/sister." There's no coming back from that. Someone who says "I love you" without elaboration to someone they know to be romantically interested in them is doing it wrong, unless they mean to encourage them.

I think, and I hope you'll also find, that most of communication is non-verbal. The only way I could see this being a mix-up is if you're exclusively texting someone and the relationship is kind of complicated, or you're hoping it's something more than it is. Typically people whom you are friends with will say I love you if the nature of the relationship is well established, if they say it at all. At least where I'm from, "I love you," is not really common to say between friends. Weirdly there's a huge difference between, "love you, man/dude" and "I love you." Also, "I am in love with you" is a pretty clear disambiguation, meaning you love someone romantically.