The Love-Hate Relationship

All women are specialists of some sort. Some specialize in shopping – like my stepmother. This woman is so good at shopping, she shops like the dickens for everyone else, too. A sharp eye for size and a good sense of fashion, “Cynthia” can pick out clothes for anyone and the invariable response will be “this looks like what I would buy for myself!” Some women specialize in breaking up. I had a friend who could break up with a man so smoothly and easily, he was already in the car halfway down the block before the break up even registered.

My particular specialty is the love-hate relationship. This is actually a skill that many women have mastered, starting out very early and very personally. Whether realizing it or not, most all women have a love-hate relationship with themselves first. This opens the door for all the other love-hate relationships in our lives. We love-hate our apartments, we love-hate ice cream and chocolate, we love-hate our mothers, we love-hate men.

Sometimes, the love-hate focus is on a particular man. Most women have met him, or will one day meet him. The one I’m talking about is ultra-confident, says all the right things, has an answer (or excuse) for everything, and manages at every turn to overrule your every logical thought. First, we lust after him. Only then can we really dig down into love-hating him.

Mine’s name was “Brian”, a perfect candidate for the Slime of the Month club. Oozing charm and poise, the Brians of the world can get past the defenses of the most sensible, cynical, and hardened single lady. Invariably, we find out later on that he’s already got a girlfriend. Brian and his ilk are the notorious “serial cheaters” who cannot stay faithful to any one woman but pretend, quite well, to be faithful to them all. You end up love-hating this man because he’s such a sleeze, how could you help but hate him? On the flip side, you can’t outright loathe him because somehow, some way, he gets you every time.

It has been said that love and hate are the two sides of the same coin, that you cannot have one without the other. And everyone has heard some tale, once, about a couple of people who couldn’t stop arguing and squabbling with each other. One day, the two who couldn’t stand each other discover that they’re really madly in love. They get married and live happily ever after. âÂ?¦What? You didn’t see that movie?

Though hate and love are close, they should not necessarily be interchangeable. Hating a thing one day and loving it the next is a serious problem – and an unstable reaction. Many things evoke strong feelings, and that cannot be helped. Anything that purges you of both loathing and loving is something that is probably best avoidedâÂ?¦or dealt with. Flip-flopping between two extremes shows an ambivalence, an indecisiveness that might suggest there is some deep concern that has not been addressed or discovered.

Such has been my experience. Thankfully, there are a few positive notes on the subject of the love-hate relationship. Nearly every single love-hate relationship between men and women levels out in the most natural way�and mostly just becomes pure hate. But if there is even a little bit of love, that feeling can probably be expanded upon to nullify the hatred so that there is only a love relationship.

There is a bigger issue – isn’t there always? – in the love-hate relationship that all single women seem to have with men. We single women are still down there slaving in the dating trenches, wading through all the men that got dumped by women before us, hoping to salvage that rare diamond from the rough. It is far too easy to slip into a love-hate attitude toward the male gender in general, for we truly see what pigs they can be, and are rarely subject to seeing what angels they can be. There is a simple solution.

Do not love-hate them all. Hate some of them, and love some of them. Only�do try and give them a chance first, to see if they be pig or angel. Starting out ready to battle through a love-hate relationship is the only thing that guarantees you will have to.