Everybody always talks about falling in love. We have movies about it, books about it, greeting card industries about it, holidays, candles, expressions and candy (both in the sense of the delectable treats and Mandy Moore).
But I'm not here to talk about love today. I'm here to give voice to its neglected, industry-less brother: hate. People usually try to shove the "H" word under the rug because everyone knows that hate is bad. As young children we're taught to curb our aggressive feelings and channel them into art projects and pillow punching. As adults, if we fail to keep up a fa??ade of social grace we are shunned.
Statistics even show that inmates look down on other inmates whom they view as being abnormally angry.
If only we could have a world without hate, where we could continuously tolerate one another and everything was always sunshine and rainbows and puppies...
This is what we are taught is the makings of a good, productive society. Love = good, hate = bad.
Unfortunately, there is just one fly in the ointment. Hate is a naturally occurring phenomenon, just like love.
We all feel hate at one point or another. And unlike love, an emotion that everyone has been groomed to be receptive to since an early age (making it more bearable when it happens unexpectedly), we are absurdly ill-equipped to deal with our hatred. It's ironic because I suspect the reason hatred got a bad rap in the first place is that people didn't know how to curb their reactions to it, not because it's inherently bad.
Everyone knows that hate leads to awkwardness, unpleasantness and violence. However, hate isn't always a bad thing. After all, righteous indignation is a form of hatred, right?
And, by the same token, love can have all the same side effects as hate, only they're more acceptable because they are "in the name of love."
If someone you have no feelings for loves you, it can cause just as much discomfort as hate, if not more because when someone has positive feelings for you, you automatically feel a little more responsible for them. As for violence, if you're a woman between the ages of 18 and 30, you are most likely to be brutally murdered by someone who once loved you. So much for love being a soft, cushy panacea!
Falling in hate is a lot like falling in love, but the opposite. It starts out small. You find someone with whom you are forced to spend a ton of time really abrasive for one reason or another; maybe they have a really grating voice or maybe they have an absurdly invasive way of looking at you.
The same way good looks trigger a halo effect, these small annoyances make you more receptive to this person's annoying traits because you are looking for concrete reasons to justify your instantaneous dislike of them.
After you've gathered five or six of these reasons (small stupid things they've done, ridiculous statements they've made, etc.) all it takes is one large indiscretion on their part to send you reeling into hate.
And after that there's no going back; you feel a burn at the mention of their name or the sight of their face like a diuretic surge through your consciousness. Eventually the burn gets so bad that you can't hold it back.
Just as in love, you're suddenly completely at the mercy of your emotions, waiting for the instant that you will be overwhelmed and three little words will just pop out unbidden: I hate you. Most of us don't get to this point of dislike, at least not often. It only really happens when you're forced to be around someone all the time, because for the most part, people tend to avoid anyone who inspires this level of negativity in them. If it has happened to you or you are currently in a situation where you are forced to interact day in and day out with someone that you hate, my hat goes off to you.
It is not an easy task. I could tell you to infuse humor into the situation, to find a sort of twisted pleasure and relish each revolting sensation.
But we would both just be kidding ourselves. Because let's face it - when you really hate someone, no level of maturity and no level of humor are going to help you to diffuse the situation.
All I can say is, you're not alone and that person is just as ridiculous as you think they are. That, and say no to violence.
