What is the equivalent of saying "I love you" in friendships?

[YHL6965]

What is a way to tell a friend how much you appreciate them without basically saying "I love you" so that it's not interpreted in a romantic way?

[Regmorus]

Lol back in times when me and my best friend were into appreciation how much we're friends something like that was "Yes, our ways are always one way. Even while they are separate because each one of us both is destined to go alone. And our lives don't get tired to prove it again and again."

"Definitely our souls knew each other before we were born." (kind of generalized concept of soulmate that can be applied to different people) or "We were friends in previous lives too. We were always friends."

And we invented some word that is similar to the word meaning friend phonetically in our native language but had THE meaning for us - a somewhat funny and unserious word, but this unseriosity only amplified the real meaning.

And actually we weren't even afraid though a bit unsure to speak about how similar true friendship is to love, love pure from body. "I love you as a friend, we both know what it means and I know you do too. How sad that people don't know what is true friendship anymore."

And of course there are comparisons to films and books. (well we compared to friendships of some persona in some worlds from our games) If you do not tell the comparison as joke, but do it with seriousness and naturality.

[codyccc]

Getting up a 5am to help them move their girlfriend 500km to there house because she has enough stuff your semitruck and 53 foot van trailer is required to make it one trip and you only have a day to do it

[Anonymous]

Girls just say I love you lol

[pigoat]

My friend use to tell me he loves me


Quit trying to find a way around it

[YHL6965]

Yeah but, when it's a girl, I don't want to be misunderstood.

[pigoat]

I love you as a friend

I have love for you as a friend

[pizzalovershouse]

Say your the greatest friend i have an friendship like yours never dies

[reptocarl2]

I love you. Me and my male BFF of fifty years say it to each other all the time

[Dinosaursandanime65]

That's a good wisdom

[Anonymous]

I just tell them that I love them. Just be sure to say no homo afterwards if it is a guy friend

[LemiaOfTheCodes]

I awlays tell my friends I love them protonically.