Such a small difference

Have you ever considered just how dissimilar "care for" and "care about" really can be?

We tend to use them interchangeably, but they're really, really different when you think about it.

And then, there is a rather old fashioned use of "care for" - normally in the negative.  Relatives of my past generation would say "I don't care for [...]" when they were trying to soften "I don't like [...]".   That really confuses things.

Sometimes, "caring about" someone means NOT "caring for" them, meaning, not doing stuff they can do for themselves.  Sometimes both caring for and caring about mean doing stuff for people.

We'll even use "care about" as an excuse for bad behavior:  "I did it because I care about you and I thought you would like it/it would be good for you."  [PS: if you really cared for me, maybe you would have asked me first....]

I watched a movie recently that basically boiled down to:  "Because I care about you, I can't be around you anymore".  And it made perfect sense.  I care about you, so I've tried to care for you and you rejected me over and over so, because I care about you, I'm going to leave you alone. 

And some times "caring about" someone happens in a situation in which expressing that has some real barriers to its expression.  In those cases, we can accidentally morph "caring about" into a less productive version of "caring for".