For purposes of this discussion, please exclude spouses, siblings, parents, and children from the ranks of your friends.
Think of your closest friend. Would you call the emotion you hold for that person love? For that matter, would you call the feeling that person evinces for you love? Why or why not?
You can wait for a poll if you want, but there’s not gonna be one.
I might use the word “love”, though I generally don’t because society tends to interpret the word very narrowly to mean either “romantic love” or “familial love”. That said, I’m about as close with my best friend as I am with anyone in my family so it really isn’t a bad description of the emotion involved.
Sometimes I think the greeks have the right idea, having multiple words for love. It makes this kind of question so much easier.
Sure. My best friend and I routinely say we love each another. Why wouldn’t we?
I loved my friend, counted her as part of my family. She got hooked up with a bad, creepy guy (child porn, lots of drama), and her folks and I tried to help her through it. After a few months she moved to another state with the convicted creeper.
I’ve effectively given up on her. I don’t think I would ever give up on one of my parents, perhaps I would if I found out one of them was a pederast.
Love comes in different forms and it’s not necessarily everlasting but I think I’d still classify what I feel for my friends as love. Affection or esteem isn’t quite the same and seems inadequate.
Yes. There are different types of love–romantic love, family, friendship love.
I certainly would, and do. As others have said, there are many kinds of love. I don’t love all my friends, and those that I do love, I love in different ways. Some I love as friends, some feel more like family, some are both.
But yes, I love them, and I tell them so. Certainly not as often as I tell my husband that, but I do.
Oh yes. I love her very much! We’ve been friends since we were children. Like dangermom and her friend, we tell each other we love each other all the time!
I actually have two best friends and the second is more reserved. I don’t think I’ve ever told her I love her, but I do. I’ve known her maybe 10 minutes longer than the other.
I’ve often thought the same thing.
It’s sad, the way you can’t say “love” without implying sexual feelings.
Yes, I’d call it love. I love all of my friends.
Absolutely. In fact, I told a close colleague at work today that I loved her and she said she loved me too. We then joked that we hoped no one else was listening in that might misconstrue wat we were saying. 
My best friend is more a part of my family than some of my family is. I love her to death and tell her often.
I also love the little ‘niece’ that she has produced and will love the ‘nephew’ that should be born any minute now.
I love certain people but have a hard time saying “I love you” out loud (except to my husband.)
That being said, I genuinely and sincerely loved my best friend (not in a gay way, sheesh) and she knew it. We only knew each other for about 3 years but I trusted her with my life. She moved to a different city in 2008 then passed away from “small cell sarcoma”. I will always cherish my time with her.
My longest best friend, who I’ve known since Grade 1, tells me she loves me every time we talk or write. I don’t say it out loud back but she knows damn well that I also love her very much.
So yes, the feelings I have for my best friends certainly is love.
My best friend from High School and I still keep in contact, though sadly not as often as we should. Every time I see him it is like seeing my brother and I have told him many times that I love him. Nothing gay about it, just respect for a life-long friend that has been there for 30 years. Since we have moved to different areas of the country and no longer spend much time together we have both acquired new “best friends” I have one who is very close to me and we have been friends for 15 years or so. Yet even though I feel like a brother to him as well, I have never told him that I “love” him like I have my oldest friend. I don’t know why, perhaps now that I am older the phrase said to another man is awkward. But I have made my feeling known to him, that he can always count on me and if he ever needs anything he only needs to call.
My wife can clearly see how much my friend means to me. She tells me my whole demeanor changes after I talk to him or we spend time together doing something. She has used the term “bromance” when describing us. Makes me shudder at the thought, but there you go.
I love my best friend. My feelings for him are pretty much identical to the feelings I have for my brother. He feels the same way about me, and we occasionally tell each other. It doesn’t seem weird to me to tell a friend that I love him.
Yes, for my part.
I have two really good friends; one of them and I say we love each other all the time, and the other is really conflicted about what it means to love anyone but her family, so I never use the word with her.
Yep. I told two of my friends I loved them just this week!
Yep. The only difference is that my best friend is also female. But yeah, I feel very close to the same feeling for her as I do my brother.
Eh, not at the minute, she’s become a complete train wreck, so it’s more deep concern and anxiety mixed with an increasing desire to not be involved with her self-induced dramas.
Yes, to me, “love” is a word I extend to friends. Not just my “best” friend (position currently vacant, if you insist on excluding my SO), but any friend with whom I communicate on a fairly regular basis and know fairly well. I use “love” in the sense of action more than feeling, although feeling is involved, but it definitely is not exclusive to “romantic” or familial relationships. As some of my dearest friends are fond of saying, you don’t get to pick your family, but you do get to pick your friends - and I’ve had some really wonderful people pick me and let me pick them.