I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult.

The speaker ranks emotional intensity—however negative—above emotional absence. Contempt, in this view, is a distorted afterimage of care: it testifies that the relationship once mattered enough to provoke strong feeling. Apathy, by contrast, signals erasure and indifference, the true negation of intimacy. The contrast between “hot or cold” and “lukewarm” frames passion as a force that can still produce change, learning, or decisive endings, while lukewarmness implies stagnation and disrespect. The quote thus treats the extremities of feeling as evidence of meaning and as catalysts for growth, whereas tepid disengagement becomes the deepest insult because it denies significance altogether.