To love someone, but not like them
I did a little reflecting on past experiences today and my mind wandered to past loves and as I drifted into chapters of much sunshine and much pain, I came to acknowledge something I haven't always considered in relationships.
There's this popular song by an American artist (now dead, God rest his soul) called Lucid Dreams.
This is a song about Love and past pain by Juice Wrld and the openly verse is quite relevant to this topic so I'll quote it:
“I still see your shadows in my room, can't take back the love that I gave you, it's to the point where I love and I hate you, but I cannot change you, so I must replace you.”
I think that a lot people can agree to knowing what it feels like to love and hate someone at the same time yet it is a feeling most cannot explain.
They can acknowledge that it is there, but just cannot explain it.
The truth is, that feeling called “hate” isn't exactly hate.
You cannot love and hate someone at the same time. You either love a person or you hate them or you simply feel nothing towards them.
The last part is indifference, you are simply unconcerned or not interested in their existence.
This is oftentimes argued to be the true opposite of love but I disagree. Love requires significant emotional investment into something or someone. The expected outcome of this investment is positive.
Hate also requires substantial emotional investments, only that the outcome is negative.
You love someone, you invest in helping them grow.
You hate someone, you invest in bringing them down.
They are so clearly opposites of each other. Indifference is the absence of both feelings and there are no real connections hence expectations are essentially absent, too.
So if love and hate are opposing feelings, and you can't love and hate someone at the same time, even though we often think this to be true and even sing about it as Juice Wrld did, what then is that foreign feeling that isn't pleasant but present towards a person you love?
I'll say that the feeling is “dislike” not hate.
This is me saying that we can love someone yet dislike them at the same time and vice versa.
To love someone and to like someone are two very different things.
Love is sacrifice. It is given for free. What's that thing they say?
“Love don't cost a dime.”
Yes, that is very true.
On the other hand. Liking someone costs something.
Not to you, but the person being liked by you, because it is a reward not a gift, as love is. It is selfish most times but it is good, still.
Being liked comes by merit.
Being loved is unconditional.
This is the core difference.
However, just because I said it costs something doesn't mean that it is always monetary, although, in many cases, that could be involved, especially in dating.
Nonetheless, being liked could result from anything. You help your neighbors safely store their mails while they are away, they might just like you for that.
It is, at all times, a reward for something you've given or done.
In many relationships, people just like each other. Love doesn't really exist, you'll know this because there'll be absence of sacrifice, no selfless actions. Then we have cases where one of the two involved loves the other but the other only likes them, although both may think they're in love with each other.
Eventually, it will be found that only one person was truly loving the other and due to the pain and disappointment, the lover in mention will develop a “dislike” for the one he loves.
This is the point where it feels like you hate the person you love, but that most times isn't the case. You only discovered that they aren't treating you right, so you're unable to like them, because they have to give something for you to like them. It is just how it works.
You could still find yourself loving them and continually sacrificing for them, but sometimes, one could be pushed to a corner where that love turns into hate and in the same way they invested to lift the other up, they'll equally invest to pull them down.
Some people jump ship before it gets to this point, but there are also many cases where they stuck around long enough to hate the person they once loved.
All in all. Love is unconditional, liking someone is conditional.
However, for a relationship to work, all parties involved do need to both like and love each other.
I guess that's what people try to communicate when they say that your lover also has to be your best friend.