Love/Hate Relationships

1) If you've hung around here long enough, you'll know I love men. My man in my bed, in my life, in my heart, my arms, my kitchen and my books. Other men to admire and adore. They're aesthetically pleasing, intellectually stimulating, challenging and fascinating.

They're also stubborn, frustrating, manipulative, workshy, stupid gits.

2) I love chocolate. Rich, dark, silky and perfect.

I don't like a stomach that resembles dough that's been left to rise for too long. White dough.

3) I love ibuprofen. It does what no other painkiller will do for me, at certain times, and without it I'd spend way too many hours in bed smothering my curses in my pillow.

I hate what ibuprofen does to my intestinal tract. [Here I pause to let my readers go, "Ewww!"]

4) I love my job. It's varied, satisfying, valued and well-supported by my employer.

It's also frustrating, undervalued by our clients, misunderstood by the rest of the world and I hate what it does to my life.

Love cats. Hate the death of small creatures. Love kids. Hate the trying to get pregnant. Love gardens. Hate slugs. Love holidays. Hate the unpacking.

Then I think about Frenchman.

Emily loves Tristan. She loves him far earlier in the book than she realises. But she hates that he stands between her and everything she wants. And he knows it.

Tristan falls for Emily almost the first moment he sees her. But he hates, most violently, the way she starts to rely on him, the way he becomes one of the reasons she can't crawl out of her own fear.

Hmm. Maybe Love/Hate relationships aren't such a bad thing. Isn't that what we call Conflict?

What's today's Love/Hate for you?