Dear Guru Stu,

Can you hate someone you love?

Signed,
Mixed up

Dear Mixed Up,

Dear Mixed,

Well... can you have vanilla and chocolate ice cream in the same bowl?

Love and Hate are two sides to the same emotion; they intimately bind two people together. The only difference is one of direction -- Love bringing together; Hate pushing apart. If you've ever held two magnets together, you've felt the same power.

The potential to have both are always present. It's just a matter of the direction you're facing.

People are complex; and relationships between people is doubly complex.

Most of the time we don't actually love or hate another person, but rather we love or hate something about them. When they do something we like, the love comes in; or otherwise, then hate.Most of the time, it's not true Love or Hate that we feel, but rather anger, frustration, joy, sexual attraction. We just label it one or the other to make it easier to pigeonhole. Basically, we have our relationships on the one hand and a mixed bag of feelings on the other.

It just comes down to the right hand knowing what the left hand is up to.

Keep the light on,

Gurustu