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This is not, however, an accurate conception of how these emotions are related to each other. The psychological reality is that love and hate are closer to each other than to any midpoint between them. This is because they share a common emotional intensity that intimately connects them. |
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Instead of thinking of them as complete oppositesas far apart from each other as they could possibly bewe begin to see that when we love someone, it is easy at times to feel hatred toward him or her. If we don't care about someone, we don't feel strongly enough to love or hate him or her. So indifference is the midpoint between love and hate. |
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Look at Figure 51 to see this graphically. With true polar opposites, the middle point C is closer to both A and B than A is to B. Just as true polar opposites should be, A (west) and B (east) are as far away from each other as they can possibly be. |
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But in Figure 5.2 A (love) and B (hate) collapse or bend back toward each other when one point is stretched to its limit. The midpoint C is the furthest point from both A and B. |
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It is the common denominator of strong emotion that ties these apparent opposites together. The fact that one emotion (hate) is intense dislike and the other (love) is intense liking is not as psychologically meaningful as their common intensity. We are feeling something that moves us strongly with both love and hate. |
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So, when girlfriends hear that a friend has strong feelings, even "hates" the new man she is dating, they tell her, "Watch out you don't fall in love with him." They intuitively understand that strong emotion can move from positive to negative and back again, that it is not stuck on one side of the bipolarity. |
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Another common example is that children will get the attention they crave from their parents by misbehaving if they are unable to get it in more positive ways. While they would certainly prefer it come in a positive form, they understand that, in the end, it is the attention that matters mostnot what they have done for it or the form in which they receive it. |
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A third example that drives home the point is how in the middle of a bitter divorce and custody battle each partner can say and do bitter, resentful, and vicious things toward the other. They often will use their children as pawns in a deceitful and manipulative game aimed at vindictively hurting the other party. |
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This hurtful turning against the other is the most powerful way they have to deal with feelings of rejection and injured false pride. |
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