I found this in a box of old stuff. Not sure what I think about it yet.

The Useless Phrase
Saying "I love you" seems rather ambiguous to me. When you tell someone you love them it can mean any number of things; it can mean "thank you," or "you have been a swell friend," or "I'll miss you, you old so-and-so." As a description of one's state of mind and/or feelings for another person, "I love you" is not especially practical. In fact, "I love you" is really quite prosaic, an essentially useless phrase.

Say, rather, I think of you. When I feel rotten I want to call you and vent, and good things aren't as real until I tell you about them.

Say, instead, I see you. I recognize your walk, your smell, your quirks of speech. I am as familiar with your writing as with my own, and I could pick your hands out of a line up.

I believe you. I trust you when you tell me you will stay with me, and even when we fight I believe you care for me. I allow without fear that you will stand with me and not laugh at my eccentricities (much).

I worry about you. When you are late I think of car accidents and when you don't call I think of violent burglers breaking in on you. I guard your safety as selfishly as I do my own.

I talk with you. I tell you my most appalling secrets because you trust me with yours. I tell you when I have been crying and when I have been scared. I pull no punches, I edit no thoughts, and I do not need to embellish to make myself better. Not to you.

More than anything, I am comfortable with you. You have seen me naked, you have seen me fresh from the shower with all my defenses washed off. You have watched me shave, brush my teeth, put on deodorant. I slouch around in old clothes, I pick food out of my teeth, I launder my unmentionables in front of you. I eat out of the pan, I play computer games, I watch terrible late night television, and I know you will forgive me. I let you see me as I am.

No brief three-word phrase could adequately describe my feelings for you. No clipped arrangement of single syllables could summerize all the ways you know me. But since even a book of my ramblings would not provide sufficient explanation of my feelings, I might as well fall back on those trite, over-used words, and trust that you will understand all the things I am trying to express when I say I love you.