Finding right loving signature is tricky

Dear Miss Manners:

I’m looking for the right thing to say in signing a card to a man I do love; however, I don’t want to write the word “love.”

I’ve come up with “your loving friend,” but I need some other ways to express admiration without sending “I love you” or “With admiration and love …”

What would you say? I don’t want to push him away but would love to express myself lovingly without actually saying it. Does this make sense? Gentle Reader:

It doesn’t have to. It’s love. Hesitant love, but love.

But Miss Manners supposes that the gentleman might try to make sense of it, in which case “Your loving friend” might be interpreted as the current, rather chilling use of “friend” in a possibly romantic situation, meaning, “I’d rather just be friends.”

How about “Affectionately yours” or “Fondly yours”? Now that the “yours” is improperly so often dropped from “Sincerely” and “Very truly” (for those who have not yet succumbed to a mere “Best”), it might seem promising. Dear Miss Manners:

A friend of mine whom I have grown distant from has invited me and three other friends to a members-only club for a dinner next month. I would feel very out of place at this type of establishment and have no interest in going. This friend has a new relationship with a wealthy fellow, and her lifestyle has changed since we met.

The three other friends who are invited are excited to go to a private club. It took many attempts to pick a date for the four of us to meet. How do I back out graciously? Gentle Reader:

A bit snobbish, are we

Miss Manners is not referring to your friend. That lady may have changed her dining venue, but she has invited her old friends to come along. It is you who feel that where you eat is more important than with whom.

All right, you can merely thank her and decline the invitation on the grounds that you find you cannot make that date after all, no specific reason necessary. But unless the club has a policy of discrimination justifying a boycott, this strikes Miss Manners as snobbish.