Love and Hate — Two Shades Of The Same Colour

Strange Bedfellows

Love and Hate — Two Shades Of The Same Colour

I have often wondered if hate is just a variation of love, a sort of twisted, probably perverse form of caring and wanting to be with someone.

After all, wouldn't the opposite of love be indifference?

As long as there is hate, there is a connection between the hater and the hated.

In the worst of scenarios, two people fall in love, then one checks out, physically and emotionally, and begins a completely new life. The other person, however, still has feelings for the one that left. He-She is nowhere near the closure necessary to accept the end of the relationship.

"I miss Her-Him so much," He-She moans. "I would do anything to get Her-Him back."

While He-She moans and groans about losing Her-Him, Her-Him has moved on and starts seeing other people, even sleeping with them. Fall-out sex, the sex you have as you're falling out of love, seems to be a unique kind of physical celebration. Sometimes, it's angry sex, sex as revenge, but not always. Her-Him may be so elated to be away from He-She that Her-Him simply explodes by engaging in long nights of raw sex. And not just slam-bang-thanks-for-the-ride sex, really good sex. Sex with a groan of pleasure, in a variety of positions that would make any good Mormon fall into apoplexy. That kind of sex becomes the hallmark of freedom. "I'm free, I'm free ... look at me now you bastard-bitch, I'm fucking free."

Ooops, now you see there's that F-word. I am always cautious about using the word, "free," because what is a constant call for freedom if it's not a way of saying, "I feel so fucking trapped."

It's never good to feel trapped. It's not really a lifestyle at all. When Her-Him begins to feel trapped, well the writing is on the wall, right next to the chips in the plaster where Her-Him threw the good china and just above the hole in the wall that He-She made with an afterwards broken fist.

Under those somewhat destructive conditions, it's time to move on. And yet, some never do. Some offer up their lives for Her-Him, hang their hearts from a rafter in the ceiling like it was a punching bag, and say, "Here, love me or hate, but just don't leave me."

Before long, in the circle of disappearing friends, one hears He-She musing aloud, "I hate that I love Her-Him so much."

I never understood that contradiction, but I have seen it lying out there on the kitchen table beside the spilt oatmeal and last night's dirty dishes. It's one of those ugly realities of life — love and hate tossing about together, like sour milk separating into unseemly chunks the moment you pour it into your coffee.

The thing is that love and hate are like fraternal twins, different but still somehow connected. Love is the preferred way to be linked to another person, but in the absence of love, hate will do.

In both love and hate there is an emotional attachment. Hate is just love looking in the mirror, reversed but still there.

In fact, sometimes I wonder if a hate relationship is not actually stronger than a love relationship, especially if all that hate-love is festering on the curb of I-Can't-Get-Over-Losing-You Boulevard. Obsession is more powerful than progression.

No, if I were hard pressed to define the opposite of love, I guess I would say that the opposite to being in love is not caring at all.

Now, before you jump in with the comment that, in your own experience, you still care about So-And-So, but you definitely no longer love So-And-So, well, really, you might as well confess that the tingle of the emotion you felt for that person is still brooding somewhere in your being. Maybe you're just waiting for a second chance. Maybe saying things like, "I still want to be your friend," is the same as saying, "I still love you, and I'll wait for you until you come to your senses."

Ending is not mending. Ending is just ending.