What is the opposite of love?
Hate or Apathy?

Apathy or indifference is the opposite of love.

When someone doesn't have love in their heart towards someone/something, they have a lack of passion/emotion for that person or thing... making them indifferent.

If a lack of emotion,
is the opposite of love.
It could, just as easily be said,
to be the opposite of hate.


Edited to add:

Oopsie! I posted without trolling.

I have read that elsewhere too.

www.quoteinvestigator.com

The Beloved Ego: Foundations of the New Study of the Psyche” by prominent Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Stekel. The text was translated from German into English by Rosalie Gabler and published in 1921.

'There is no love without hate; and there is no hate without love. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference; the opposite of feeling can only be the absence of feeling. Disinclination, which is coloured by feeling, often only serves the purpose of concealing and protecting oneself against an inclination. Love and hate must go hand in hand; and the people we love most we hate also, because hate is grounded in the nature of love.'


Here are my thoughts... why, as an example, do white supremacists hate? There was no love to begin with and they certainly are not indifferent?

Perhaps they were programmed to, brought up to hate? But yes, that is mind boggling based on what quote investigator is saying. Indifferent is lack of emotion, any emotion, so in that case the White Supremacists wouldn't be considered indifferent even though they never had love to begin with. You can't have hate if you've never had love, so they do have love in their hearts, just not towards other races.

Ugh, now you got my mind churning, lol. I suppose it would be more accurate to say the opposite of love is the lack of love, haha. And the opposite of emotion is indifferent.

Indifference is void of passion.
Neither love nor hate.
Few are completely indifferent.

Love is positive passion.
Hate is negative passion.

The opposite of love is hate.
The opposite of hate is love.

Very few people can purely love or hate.
Most love and hate exists as shades.

The capacity of love is usually proportional to the capacity of hate.
Both are passion driven.
Since passion has shades, its possible to love someone more than you hate them and vice versa.

You can love someone but hate some of the stuff they do.
You can hate someone yet love some of the stuff about them.
Since passions change, its possible to hate someone then start to love them and vice versa.

For many people, emotional states are in constant flux.
This is because emotions are temporary feelings based on current events.
If the conditions of the event changes, emotional passions about the event (person, place or thing) changes to reflect how you currently feel about it.
With other people, it has a lot to do with empathy and acceptance/rejection.

Or is it possible there is no true definition, and we're all just overthinking it?

indifferent,,,,no interest or sympathy; unconcerned......APATHY.... HATE is a

emotional connection as is love......

What is the opposite of love?

Hate or Apathy?

Who says it has to have an "opposite?"

It's usually a sign of something negative when people attempt to force things to be put into either/or, black/white, binary systems/boxes/labels.


To me this is like asking "what's the opposite of car?
Rollerblade's? Or Wheelchair?"

Love, hate, apathy, they aren't mutually exclusive, nor are they perpetual states.

World and people are more complex than that.