What emotion is the opposite of love?

Besides contemplating this question many times before, I had this conversation on a date once- needless to say there was no second date! :D

My answer was initially hate, she said indifference (apathy). I said I understood what she meant but that the context of the question asked for the opposite emotion of love, which is the same question being asked here. I agree the opposite of an emotion is apathy but logically it has to be maintained that the opposite of the emotion called love is still hate. Here's my reasoning- If the opposite of hate was apathy and the opposite of love was apathy then the opposite of apathy must be love-hate, otherwise love or hate respectively separately- but this is exactly where context has to come in. The question frames the scope/ context and the question is about the emotion of love and since they (love and hate) can be separated as two types of emotions that are juxtaposed this would I think be proof enough that hate is the answer. However because of context I actually think they are both right so I answered "all of the above". Otherwise we are perhaps playing childish games with ourselves about right and wrong and life shows time and again when we dig deeper nothing's ever quite that simple, as much as we might want it to be.

Other thoughts I will add: what do love and hate measure for that matter? It's been said they are a continuum of the same thing- what is this "thing" we are talking about then? Consciousness or perhaps something un-measureable/ un-knwown or un-knowable in the physical context? I think that words (language) point to meaning but words themselves do not provide us an entire explanation of the meaning of a thing in terms of all possible ways of explaining a thing because humans are capable of knowing in 3 main ways- thought, emotion and visceral experience. e.g. one can't smell love from a word descriptor, but we can smell in the experience of love- ie the love of flowers because of the experience associated with their pleasant smell.

So, words are ways to refer to things in thought, but not things themselves in an entirety. This is what I understand in philosophy is whats meant by 'intention', which is purported to arise in consciousness, whatever that 'means', or which may ally with a non-physical interface to the physical world and I think words can point to things that are physical or non-physical. Yet because I observe we all at times, want to feel safe, secure and controlled in our existence, only the physical or non-physical works (respectively), whilst others can sit with all that arises and in that case both works for them. I think physical and non-physical are both constructs existing on different levels of one and the same thing ultimately. I don't think that mean's they cancel each other out though. Again they are different aspects of the same thing, what ever this thing called life is or could ever be known to be- enlightened ones may know this(?) It is the design of our universe and all these concepts may be really hard to understand but I think these "other thoughts" I present can be used as sub-proof to show how much context matters in answering difficult questions like these, about words and their meanings.

i've read a lot of people's explanations claiming apathy is, and while in some contexts, i believe this to be true, i don't think you can deny that hatred is also- it all depends on the context...i mean someone with a 'laissez-faire' attitude, who 'lives and let lives' without being incensed with others for who they are or what they believe in, is 'apathetic' in a certain sense, as others don't stir their emotions, yet could hardly be considered to be the opposite of loving. i admit that in intense relationships with people, the boundaries between love and hate can be blurred, but is this not comparable with the colours black and white (being opposites) merging to form grey? even though they have the capability to be merged, the opposite of black is still not grey. i enjoyed reading other people's analogies, as metaphors are often a good way of understanding things...personally i would say apathy is the opposite to 'caring' in any form (being emotionally attached/involved to anything - whether it be others or simply circumstances/things that affect one directly)- basically apathy is the absence of all emotional engagement, whereas the opposite of compassionate love (seeking not to harm others) is hatred, which seeks to do the opposite. i think we should also consider that's it's possible to merely 'like' something, or be infatuated by it, the difference between passion and compassion, the fact that opposites can sometimes converge to form a paradox, and the fact that the word 'love' alone can stand for compassionate love, passionate/sexual love (lust) and commitment. also, i think that when ' in love', it is normal to feel lust, it's just a case that it's not the only thing you feel. either way, i'm not claiming to be definitely right in this, it was an interesting and difficult question to answer, and i welcome other people's opinions =)