For different people it is different, but for me, I wouldn't say "I love you" to anyone except my closest friends, partner, or parents. It really depends on how close you are to the person and how well you know them. I would only say "I love you" to someone I've known for years and feel a very deep affection for. For friends (not a partner), it is important that you know them well enough that you can say "I love you" and they will understand that you love them as a friend, and not as anything else. If I was to express affection for someone I didn't know as well, I would say something like, "I like you" or "you are great!" I often say things that express affection but don't use the word "love". Love is just for the deepest relationships or ones where you really know the other person won't take it the wrong way. Something else that helps is to make a reference to a person you have a platonic relationship with. You could say, "he's like a brother to me" to say you really love a male friend in a totally non-sexual way. You could say "She's like a mother to me" or "He's like a grandfather to me" as well.

I personally have no idea. I say I love you to many of my dear ones. But then it is easy to be misunderstood. I like you suffices for most circumstances. Otherwise a little bit of giving complements helps too. the most important thing is to understand what is the right relationship status or comfort level to be able to say such a thing. This comes from experience :)

To avoid confusion , you can say say: I love my parents, I am in love with ...... [ name of person] and I love my friend.............[ name of person] like a brother/sister.

only by words we can express our love by saying that, i love you, my sweetheart, etc etc, but as you asked that we uses these words for our family ,friends also, so how to do it for opposite sex without misunderstanding, then i just like to say that we will use the same words for them, but our tone of saying,our eyes,and our expression will say everything without misunderstanding and these things are same for all and has no language :)

Hi!!! I think English is weak for expressing your fellings, especially kind of loves that you fell for someones... we can find alternative word combinations in russian, in turkish and in azerbaijani... but I also don't know it in english... Then better tell someone that you love him or her in your native language... I hope people will understand you correctly and you'll not have any trouble of misunderstanding ;))) just don't think a lot... tell someone right now that you really love him/her