Being loved

When I read articles like this one on Atheism Resource (Christians love you) it reminds me of the perverted "born again" Christian who roomed with my then boyfriend. We got into an argument one day, probably over the fact that he frequently scratched his genitalia with me in the room, and he screamed at me, "You are SO HARD TO LOVE!"

I smile every time I think of that encounter. Poor boy. He'd been instructed by his church to follow John 13:34 "Love one another" but he just couldn't do it when he met me. I always thought it was too bad that Jesus hadn't mentioned "Do not scratch yourself in front of your roommate's girlfriend"--that would have been a more useful injunction to me. The reality is that I didn't want him to "love" me, nor did I feel any compulsion to love him.