Love & Hate

My high school English teacher once told us that the opposite of love is, in fact, not hate, but indifference. She said that when you boil the two feelings down, love and hate are actually the same thing.

I’ve thought about that claim a lot over the years, always returning to the conclusion that my teacher didn’t know what she was talking about. The argument just didn’t stand up to the likes of Hitler and Stalin and Kim Jong-il. It didn’t stand up to my feelings about eating broccoli, about watching sports, or about standing outside in the cold.

It didn’t stand up to bullies in high school, to friends-turned-enemies, or to people who had done horrible things to my family.

But it stands now. At the end of a romantic relationship, it stands just fine.