Robert Paterson's Weblog: Love and Hate - Two sides of the same coin - Ourselves?:

This is a quite well-worded, if brief, exploration of something I've noticed about myself and about others, that we tend to like and dislike people based on qualities we seen in ourselves that we like or dislike.

I have been talking to my friend Marie about why we like some people and dislike others . When I was younger I thought that I liked or disliked people because they had in themselves certain character pluses or minuses. Now I am getting a sense that the real issue are my character pluses and minuses. What do I mean by this?

Most people I meet I am indifferent to. They are all the folks in the main part of the Bell Curve. My empathic radar picks up too small a signal to count. Some I meet and like immediately. Some I meet and fall in love with immediately. Maybe they live on the left hand wing of my Bell Curve and have attributes of myself that I like about myself or aspire too. Then of course there are those folks that I meet and instantly feel badly about or worse. They have parts of me like my need for power or control that I don't like about myself or parts that i wish to avoid such as dependency.

Maybe or friends and enemies are reflections of ourselves? Maybe this is why it is possible to shift from love to hate?