A friend of mine told me that in China, people don't always feel comfortable saying, "I love you." Sometimes they will say, "I like you," when they actually mean, "I love you."
That happens everywhere, I believe.
We don't always say what we want to say, or ought to say. Often, we substitute some other words or actions for our real message. Commonly, we want to assume the other person just "knows" how we feel about them.
Men are really bad at this. I know. I'm one.
We DO things out of love and assume the other person, generally female (who wants to hear the words) "gets it".
I know it's hard to know he's shouting, "I LOVE YOU" when all you see is him carrying out the garbage.
Well, none of us are mind readers.
Probably, you don't want to rush up to the neighbor's spouse and yell, "I LOVE YOU". Especially if the neighbor's present. Still, maybe if people tried a little harder to get their true message across in some understandable form, there would be a few more people thinking nicer thoughts.
Not gonna change the world, but, might change somebody's day.
That's good, right?