you're welcome?

When I say "thank you" you say......

"no problem"

"it was my pleasure"

"don't mention it"

"why of course, anything for you"

or the most popular - "you're welcome"

Right? Okay, that was a rhetorical question I'm not going to wait for someone to comment and say "right, Morgan" for me to continue with this post. Moving along...

I was thinking about all this the other day after I had thanked someone for a present they automatically replied with "you are welcome."  What does that even mean? I understand what it means to thank someone, but what does "you are welcome" really mean? It's like singing the words of a song when you don't know what they mean. I'm not quite sure if I am comfortable saying things that I don't fully understand the meaning of...I know I am making this a way bigger deal than it needs to be, but oh well. I over analyze; it's what I do.

Webster defines "welcome" as a transitive verb :

1 : to greet hospitably and with courtesy or cordiality

2 : to accept with pleasure the occurrence or presence of something (welcomes danger)

Alright, Webster, you've cleared things up a bit for me. When being thanked and responding with a polite "you're welcome" I am accepting with pleasure the occurrence. So I am accepting someone's thank you?  

"Thank you for this present; I love it!"

"I accept your thank you with pleasure." <--isn't that awkward?

I've been racking my brain with the meaning "you are welcome" for over 36 hours. I've googled the crap out of it, too. On one website I found, readers posted what they thought it meant. The response that made the most sense to me was: The person is welcome to the services you have provided them with. The reason this makes sense to me is that "are" is a linking verb. So in reality you are linking the subject, you, to something, being welcome. I understand the intentions of that, but if you substitute the meaning in for the word it would be a little rude wouldn't it? 

"Thank you for this present; I love it!"

"You are welcome to the present."

Let me get this straight, you give someone a present then after they thank you for it you tell them they are welcome to have it? That makes NO sense to me. If that's the case shouldn't you welcome someone to the services as you give them? Saying "you are welcome" before someone has thanked you is rude though. Right? That is another rhetorical question. I'll tell you; it is rude.

If any of you understand the meaning of "you're welcome" please enlighten me. In the meantime I am ceasing all usage of the phrase. When I say thank you I usually mean to say:

"no problem"
"it was my pleasure"

"don't mention it"

"why of course, anything for you"

Alright, I've over analyzed a bit here this morning. It isn't making sense to me how a polite response is in reality, not very polite. That's all....Thank you