Monday Music, week 12. (Love The Way You Hate Me)

Before you read this week’s Monday Music, press play on the song below.

Some songs don’t ease you in or give you time to settle. They hit you in the face straight away, not because they’re loud, but because there’s something in them that feels a bit too real, a bit too familiar. Love the Way You Hate Me by Like A Storm is one of those songs. It doesn’t pretend to be clean or balanced. There’s tension running through it from the start, something that feels unstable but hard to look away from, and the more you sit with it, the more you realise it isn’t just about anger or frustration.

There’s something else underneath it, something that makes it stick with you.

It sits in that uncomfortable space where emotions don’t line up the way they should, where attraction and conflict exist at the same time, where something can feel intense enough to keep you there even when you know it probably shouldn’t. It’s not soft, it’s not calm, and it’s definitely not simple, but it is honest, and that’s what makes it interesting. It doesn’t try to guide you towards a certain feeling or tell you how you’re supposed to interpret it. It just presents something raw and lets you think and interpret it yourself, whether that makes sense straight away or not.

Because not everything in life is easy to understand or explain. Some connections don’t make sense when you try to break them down. Some feelings don’t sit neatly in one place. They overlap, they clash, and sometimes they push you in directions you wouldn’t normally go. You can recognise something isn’t right and still feel pulled towards it. You can understand something isn’t healthy and still struggle to step away from it. That contradiction is where this song lives.

And it doesn’t rush past it.

It stays in that space long enough for you to recognise it, whether you want to or not. It doesn’t offer a clean version of emotion, and it doesn’t pretend that everything can be separated into simple categories like love or hate. Sometimes it’s both. Sometimes it’s neither. Sometimes it’s just intensity, and that intensity is enough to keep you there.

That’s what makes it uncomfortable.

And that’s what makes it real.

This song doesn’t try to clean any of that up. It just lets it exist for what it is, and once you sit with it properly, it starts to raise a different kind of question, not just why something feels like that, but why we stay in it, and what that says about us when we do.

When Connection Isn’t Calm

There’s a version of connection people like to believe in.

The calm kind. The easy kind. The one where everything fits naturally, where conversations flow, where emotions line up the way they’re supposed to, and nothing ever feels like it’s pulling you in two different directions at once. It’s the version that makes sense. The version that feels safe.

But not every connection works like that.

Some don’t feel calm at all. They feel intense from the start, like there’s something underneath the surface that never quite settles. The conversations carry weight, even when they shouldn’t. The energy between two people feels unpredictable, like it could shift at any moment. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s hard to ignore.

And that’s where things start to blur.

Because intensity can feel like meaning.

When something feels strong, when it pulls at you in a way that’s hard to explain, it’s easy to mistake that for something deeper than it actually is. You start to believe that because it feels different, it must be important. That the tension means something. That the push and pull is part of what makes it real.

But intensity doesn’t always equal connection.

Sometimes it’s just friction.

That’s the space Love the Way You Hate Me sits in.

It doesn’t dress it up as something healthy, and it doesn’t pretend it’s balanced. It leans into that instability, into that feeling of being pulled in and pushed away at the same time. There’s an edge to it that never quite softens, like something unresolved running through every part of it.

And the thing is, people recognise that.

Not always in a way they talk about openly, but in a way they feel. Because most people, at some point, have experienced a connection that didn’t feel calm. Something that felt charged instead. Something that kept their attention, even when it didn’t feel right.

That’s where the conflict starts.

You can feel that something is off, but you can’t ignore the pull. You can see the imbalance, but part of you is still drawn to it. It doesn’t fit the idea of what a connection should be, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling powerful in the moment.

And that’s what makes it difficult to step away from.

Because it’s not just about logic.

It’s about feeling something that doesn’t sit neatly in one place. Something that shifts depending on the moment. One second it feels like connection, the next it feels like tension, and somewhere in between it becomes hard to separate the two.

That’s where this song holds its ground.

It doesn’t try to resolve that conflict or turn it into something cleaner. It stays in that space where things don’t quite make sense, where emotions overlap instead of aligning, where the experience itself becomes the thing that keeps you there.

And once you’ve felt that kind of connection, even briefly, it’s hard to forget.

Not because it was right.

But because it was intense enough to leave a mark.

When Intensity Becomes Addictive

There’s a point where intensity stops feeling accidental.

At first, it catches you off guard. It feels unpredictable, something you didn’t expect but can’t ignore. The energy between two people feels different, sharper somehow, like every interaction carries more weight than it should. You notice it, you question it, but you stay in it because it feels like something worth understanding.

But the longer it lasts, the less it feels like something you’re observing and the more it feels like something you’re part of.

That’s where it starts to shift.

Because intensity doesn’t just stay as a feeling. It starts to create a pattern. The highs feel stronger, the moments of connection feel amplified, and even the tension itself starts to feel familiar. You begin to recognise it, anticipate it, almost expect it to be there. What once felt unpredictable slowly becomes something you’re used to.

And that’s where it becomes difficult to separate what’s real from what just feels powerful.

Because intensity can mimic meaning.

When something keeps pulling you back in, when it keeps your attention in a way nothing else does, it’s easy to believe that there must be something deeper behind it. That the emotional weight you’re feeling has to be coming from something genuine, something worth holding onto. You start to justify it without realising you’re doing it, telling yourself that something this strong can’t just be surface level.

But that strength isn’t always coming from connection.

Sometimes it’s coming from contrast.

The shifts between calm and conflict, between closeness and distance, create something that feels alive in a way a steady connection doesn’t. The unpredictability keeps you engaged. It keeps you reacting. It keeps you paying attention in a way that feels almost automatic. And over time, that constant movement starts to feel normal.

That’s where the line starts to blur.

Because you’re no longer just experiencing the intensity, you’re responding to it. You start adjusting yourself around it, matching the energy without thinking about it too deeply. The push and pull becomes part of the dynamic, something that shapes how you interact without ever being clearly defined.

And once that pattern is in place, it’s hard to step outside of it.

Not because you don’t see it, but because it no longer feels separate from the connection itself. It feels like part of what makes it what it is. Something you’ve come to expect, something you’ve adapted to, something that now feels familiar enough to stay.

That’s the space Love the Way You Hate Me leans into.

It doesn’t present intensity as something temporary. It treats it as something embedded in the dynamic itself, something that fuels the connection rather than disrupting it. The tension isn’t something that needs to be resolved, it becomes part of what keeps everything moving.

And that’s what makes it difficult to walk away from.

Because when something feels that strong, even when it’s unstable, it can feel more real than something steady. It keeps you engaged, it keeps you involved, and before you realise it, you’re no longer questioning why it feels that way.

You’re just in it.

Where Love and Frustration Collide

There comes a point where you can’t clearly separate what you’re feeling anymore.

What started as intensity begins to shift into something more complicated. It’s no longer just about being drawn in or pushed away. It becomes both at the same time. You feel connected, but also irritated. You feel close, but also unsettled. There’s a constant tension between wanting to stay and wanting to step back, and neither side fully wins.

That’s where things start to lose their clarity.

Because emotions aren’t staying in their own lanes anymore. They start overlapping, mixing in ways that don’t feel clean or easy to understand. The same person can make you feel understood one moment and completely frustrated the next. The same interaction can leave you feeling pulled in and pushed away at the same time.

And over time, that contradiction stops feeling unusual.

It becomes part of the dynamic.

That’s what makes it so hard to recognise for what it is.

Because when something happens often enough, it stops feeling like a conflict and starts feeling like a pattern. You begin to expect that mix of emotions. You almost rely on it. The frustration doesn’t cancel out the connection, and the connection doesn’t remove the frustration. They exist together, constantly shifting, constantly feeding into each other.

That’s the space Love the Way You Hate Me lives in.

It doesn’t treat love and frustration as opposites. It treats them as something that can exist side by side, almost dependent on each other. The tension isn’t something that needs to be resolved. It’s part of what gives the connection its edge, part of what keeps it alive.

And that’s where it becomes difficult to step back and look at it clearly.

Because when emotions are that mixed, it’s hard to trust your own judgment. You start questioning what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it. You try to make sense of something that doesn’t follow a clear logic, and the more you think about it, the more complicated it becomes.

So instead of stepping away, you stay in it.

Not because it’s easy, but because it’s familiar.

You recognise the pattern, even if you don’t fully understand it. You know how it moves, how it shifts, how it pulls you in and then pushes you back out again. And somewhere in that movement, it starts to feel like something you can’t just walk away from without losing something.

That’s where the confusion settles in.

Because it doesn’t feel entirely negative. Some moments feel real, moments that feel strong enough to justify everything else. Those moments give weight to the connection, make it feel like there’s something worth holding onto, even when the overall experience feels unstable.

And that’s what keeps it going.

Not the frustration on its own, and not the connection on its own, but the way they interact with each other. The way one intensifies the other, creating something that feels stronger than either would on its own.

That’s what makes it hard to let go of.

Because you’re not just letting go of something negative.

You’re letting go of something that felt intense enough to matter.

Why We Stay In It

Knowing something isn’t enough.

You can recognise the pattern. You can see the tension for what it is. You can even understand how it’s affecting you, how it’s pulling you into something that doesn’t feel stable. But none of that automatically leads to walking away.

Because awareness doesn’t always break the connection.

That’s the part people don’t like to admit.

It would be easier if once you saw something clearly, you could just step back from it. If recognising the imbalance was enough to create distance, if understanding the dynamic was enough to make it lose its hold on you. But that’s not how it works when something has already settled in.

By the time you understand it, you’re already part of it.

There’s history there. There are moments that felt real, moments that felt strong enough to outweigh everything else. Even if those moments aren’t constant, they’re enough to give the connection a sense of meaning. Enough to make it feel like there’s something worth holding onto, even when everything around it feels unstable.

And that’s where the decision becomes complicated.

Because leaving isn’t just about stepping away from the tension. It’s about letting go of the parts that felt genuine as well. The parts that made you feel connected, the parts that made it feel like something more than just chaos. You’re not just walking away from frustration, you’re walking away from the intensity that once felt like it meant something.

That’s what makes it difficult.

Because the mind doesn’t separate those things easily.

It doesn’t isolate the moments that felt off and dismiss the rest. It holds onto the strongest parts, the ones that carried the most weight, and uses them as a reason to stay. It tells you that those moments are the real version of the connection, and everything else is just something that can be worked through.

That belief keeps people in place longer than they expect.

Not because they don’t see what’s happening, but because they keep finding reasons to justify it. Reasons to stay a little longer, to give it another chance, to see if the balance might shift if they just hold on for a bit more time.

And that’s where it becomes a cycle.

Because the intensity that pulled you in at the start becomes the same thing that keeps you there. The highs still feel strong enough to matter, and the tension in between becomes something you tolerate because of them. The dynamic doesn’t need to be consistent, it just needs to be strong enough at certain points to reset everything.

That’s all it takes.

A moment that feels real enough to outweigh everything else.

That’s what Love the Way You Hate Me leans into without trying to soften it.

It doesn’t pretend that staying always makes sense. It doesn’t suggest that there’s a clean reason behind it or that people are unaware of what they’re doing. It recognises that sometimes people stay even when they understand the dynamic, because understanding it doesn’t remove the attachment.

And that’s where things get uncomfortable.

Because it forces you to look at your own choices.

To question whether you’ve ever stayed somewhere longer than you should have, not because you didn’t see it clearly, but because part of you didn’t want to let go of what it felt like at its best.

That’s not always easy to sit with.

But it’s real.

And once you recognise it, it changes how you see everything that comes next.

Turning Hate Into Fuel

That same tension doesn’t just exist in relationships.

It shows up in the way people create.

Not always in an obvious way, and not always straight away, but it’s there. The same feeling of being pulled and pushed at the same time, the same energy that sits just under the surface, the same kind of reaction that doesn’t leave you alone once it’s there. The difference is what you do with it.

Because when you put something out into the world, especially something that comes from you, something personal, something you’ve built, you open yourself up to more than just connection. You open yourself up to reaction.

And not all of that reaction is positive.

Some people will like what you do. Some people will understand it. Some people will support it without question. But there’s always another side to that. People who don’t get it, people who don’t agree with it, people who feel the need to push back against it for reasons that don’t always make sense.

Some people don’t just scroll past what they don’t like.

They stop. They pick at it. They try to tear it down. Not because it deserves it, but because it gives them something they’re missing. Instead of thinking, “this isn’t for me, I’ll move on,” they think, “I’m going to say something about this.” They’ll pick it apart, take shots, try to get a reaction… just to make themselves feel a little less shit about where they are.

And that’s the part people don’t always say out loud.

A lot of it isn’t constructive. A lot of it isn’t helpful. It’s frustration, insecurity, jealousy… whatever you want to call it, dressed up as criticism so it sounds like it actually means something.

Every creator runs into it at some point.

A lot of people reading this will have already felt it. Artists, writers, indie musicians… people putting something real out there without a safety net. Some will brush it off and call it feedback. Sometimes it is. But a lot of the time, it isn’t.

It’s just noise.

And if you let it, that noise will get in your head, slow you down, make you question everything you’re doing.

Or…

It can do the opposite.

And that’s where the tension starts again.

At first, it feels personal.

You see the criticism, the doubt, the negativity, and it hits in a way that’s hard to ignore. Not because it’s always valid, but because it’s direct. It’s aimed at something you’ve created, something you’ve chosen to put out there. It forces you to look at your work from a different angle, whether you want to or not.

And you have a choice in that moment.

You can let it shut you down.

Or you can let it drive you forward.

That’s where the shift happens.

Because that same energy, that same pushback, that same friction that makes something feel uncomfortable can also make it stronger. Not by changing what you’re doing, but by reinforcing it. By giving you something to push against instead of something to retreat from.

That’s where Love the Way You Hate Me takes on a different meaning.

It stops being about staying in something unstable and starts becoming something else entirely. A reaction to being challenged, to being doubted, to being pushed in a way that makes you question whether you should keep going.

And instead of stepping back, it leans in.

There’s something powerful in that.

Not in the hate itself, not in the negativity, but in the way it can be used. The way it can be redirected into something that builds rather than breaks. The way it can sharpen what you’re doing instead of softening it.

Because when someone reacts strongly to what you create, even if that reaction isn’t positive, it means something has landed.

It means it’s been felt.

And that matters.

Not everything is meant to be liked by everyone. Not everything is meant to sit comfortably with every person who comes across it. Sometimes the very thing that makes people push back is the thing that makes it real.

And that’s where creators start to grow.

Not by avoiding that reaction, but by understanding it. By recognising that not all resistance is something to be removed. Sometimes it’s something to move through. Something to use as momentum instead of letting it become a barrier.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

It still hits. It still gets under your skin. It still makes you question things in ways that feel uncomfortable. But over time, that reaction becomes something familiar. Something you expect. Something that no longer stops you, but pushes you to keep refining what you’re doing.

That’s where the mindset changes.

Because instead of seeing that pushback as something negative, it becomes something else. A signal that you’re doing something that matters enough to be noticed. Something that carries enough weight to create a reaction.

And once you see it that way, it stops holding you back.

It starts driving you forward.

That’s the shift this section needed.

What You Do With It

Intensity doesn’t disappear just because you’ve recognised it.

It doesn’t suddenly lose its grip the moment you understand what it is or where it’s coming from. That energy, that pull, that constant tension that’s been running through everything we’ve talked about, it stays with you. It settles somewhere beneath the surface, waiting for something to react to, something to bring it back into focus. Whether it shows up in a relationship or in something you create, it doesn’t just fade out quietly. It remains, and if you’re not careful, it starts shaping how you move without you even realising it.

That’s the part most people underestimate.

Because understanding something and controlling it are two very different things.

In relationships, that kind of push and pull can take more from you than you notice at first. It keeps you engaged, keeps you thinking, keeps you reacting, but it doesn’t always give you anything steady in return. It creates movement, but not always direction. You feel involved, you feel connected in some way, but underneath that, there’s a constant sense of imbalance that never quite settles. Over time, that wears you down. Not all at once, not in a way that’s easy to point to, but gradually, in the background, until you realise you’ve been giving more of yourself to something that never really stabilises.

And the difficult part is that it doesn’t always feel like a loss.

It feels like something strong. Something that matters. Something that keeps your attention in a way that calm never quite does. That’s what makes it so easy to stay in. Because even when it’s draining, it doesn’t feel empty. It feels alive. It feels like something is happening, and for a lot of people, that feeling is enough to justify everything else that comes with it.

But there’s a difference between something that feels alive and something that actually builds something in your life.

That’s where the shift has to happen.

Because if you leave that energy where it is, if you let it keep pulling you back into the same patterns, it will continue to take more than it gives. It will keep you in a loop of reacting, adjusting, and trying to make sense of something that never fully settles. It doesn’t move you forward. It just keeps you involved.

And eventually, that becomes exhausting.

The same intensity that once felt exciting starts to feel heavy. The same pull that once kept your attention starts to feel like pressure. And if you stay in that space long enough, you start to lose track of what it was supposed to be in the first place.

That’s one side of it.

The other side is what happens when you take that same energy and refuse to let it control you.

Because the energy itself isn’t the problem.

It’s what you attach it to.

That tension, that friction, that pushback, it can exist without trapping you in something that drains you. It can be redirected. It can be used. And that’s where everything changes, not in what you feel, but in how you respond to it.

When you start creating, when you start putting something real out into the world, you meet that same energy again. Just in a different form. It comes back as criticism, as doubt, as people picking at what you’ve made and trying to break it down. It hits in a similar way. It gets under your skin, makes you question things, makes you stop and think about whether what you’re doing is worth it.

And again, you have a choice.

You can let it pull you back.

Or you can push against it.

Because when someone reacts to what you create, even if that reaction is negative, it means something has landed. It means it’s been seen. It’s been felt. It’s created enough of an impact for someone to respond to it instead of just scrolling past. That doesn’t mean every opinion matters. It doesn’t mean every comment deserves your attention. But it does mean you’ve done something that exists beyond you now.

And that’s powerful.

The difference is whether you let that reaction define you or drive you.

Because if you let it define you, it will shrink what you’re doing. It will make you second-guess everything, pull you back into safer territory, and make you question whether it’s worth putting anything real out there at all. It will turn that same energy into something that limits you.

But if you let it drive you, it does something else entirely.

It sharpens you.

It forces you to stand by what you’re doing, to understand it better, to refine it without losing what made it real in the first place. It gives you something to push against instead of something to retreat from. And over time, that pushback stops feeling like resistance and starts feeling like momentum.

That’s where control comes back into it.

Because the energy hasn’t changed.

You have.

You’re no longer reacting to it in the same way. You’re no longer letting it dictate your direction. You’re using it instead. Turning something that could have held you back into something that moves you forward.

And that applies beyond creating.

It applies to everything we’ve talked about.

Because that same intensity, that same pull, that same friction that shows up in relationships and in creation, it doesn’t have to own you. It doesn’t have to keep you stuck in something that drains you or pulls you in directions you don’t want to go. But it will, if you don’t take control of it.

That’s the uncomfortable truth in all of this.

Not that intensity exists.

But it stays until you decide what to do with it.

Love the Way You Hate Me sits right in the middle of that.

It captures the raw side of it, the part that feels unstable, the part that pulls people in and keeps them there longer than they expect. But underneath that, there’s something else. Something that isn’t said directly, but is there if you look for it.

That same energy can break you.

Or it can build something.

And most of the time, the difference isn’t in the situation you’re in.

It’s in the moment you decide whether you’re going to stay in it…

Or use it.

Reader Songs & Indie Artists

After all of that, it feels right to bring it back to something real.

Not polished, not pushed by algorithms, not filtered through what’s trending, just people creating something and putting it out there. That’s what this part of Monday Music has always been about. Real artists, real effort, real stories behind every track.

Every week, I get sent songs from people who are doing exactly that. Writing, producing, recording, and putting their work out into the world without knowing how it’s going to land. That takes something. Especially when you’ve just read everything above, because this is where it connects.

Creating means opening yourself up to reaction.

The good, the bad, and everything in between.

So when you go through the tracks below, remember that. These aren’t just songs sitting on a page. They’re pieces of someone’s time, someone’s energy, someone choosing to put something out there knowing full well it won’t be for everyone.

That matters.

The first link below is the full Monday Music Spotify playlist. Every song from every week so far, all in one place. If you want to just press play and let it run, that’s where to start.

👉 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5gK6iuswSxtugkatGm2CaU?si=697fea077b054c54

Further below, you’ll find this week’s submissions.

Take your time with them. There’s a lot of different sounds, different styles, different stories in there. If something hits, let it. If something stands out, show it some love. A follow, a like, a share… it all goes further than people think.

And while you’re here, I want to give a shout to Stephen Mac and Bounce Digital Radio.

👉 www.BounceDigitalRadio.co.uk

They’re doing their part to support independent artists, giving real music a space to be heard beyond just a single post. In a world where a lot of content gets lost in the noise, that kind of platform matters.

So if you’re into discovering new music, or you want to support something that actually gives artists a chance, go check them out.

Because this has never just been about one song.

It’s about building something where real music doesn’t get ignored.

THEPLAINANDSIMPLEGUY

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