Do you love your friends ?

[DillyHilly]

Just that really , if you have close friends, would you say you love them ?
I don't mean in actually say it ( perhaps you do ) but feel it ?
I'm not massively into having lots of friends , never have really as probably a bit of an introvert , but I could not say I've ever liked them enough to feel I could see them as someone I'd class as liking enough to love.

Not at all I'm afraid. I like them, enjoy seeing them, but I feel so much less for them than I feel for my brothers, or even cousins really. And I feel absolutely nothing towards them in comparison to ds, dh or the cat.

Yes, 3 that I have known for more than 40 years I love and another I met about 10 years ago. I have been lucky with friends, not so much with relations. Maybe that's why they mean so much to me.

Yes, some of them are my lifelines, and I hope I am theirs

They are the family you choose

Yes. Deeply. I can't imagine life any other way.

I have two friends that I genuinely love as much as my family.I have 6-8 other amazing friends that I know would be there in a heartbeat if I had a massive problem. All these friends are people that my children can rely on if I dropped dead tomorrow.Consider myself very lucky .

Absolutely. My two closest friends are my life partners in a way no romantic relationship has yet been for me (or, more accurately, has stayed for me) - we have known each other more than half our lives, we confide in each other a way I don't do with my family - we are sharing experiences and growing in similar ways. We are truly 'doing life together' and having such a strong bond is one of the things that has brought me the most joy in my life.

“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

Like a pp said, stop policing people's language. It's not a good look.

Irony, right there 😄

One of them.

Yes, I love them as much as I love my family.