Your competitor should be one of your biggest tools. You should definitley keep them on your good side, but not that close. Have you ever heard the saying" keep your friends close, but your enemies CLOSER?" well, it applies for this sort of stuff also.
i hate my competitor. and i knew all his sites and i have registered domains just to compete him lolz.
I love it, and because of that i want to crush it... destroy it... hack it... Hahaha.. just kidding, untill now i have no competitor.
Love your competitor in this sense that due to competitor, you can't leave hardworking and struggle. Because it is always in your mind that if I loose my quality in working then he/she will defeat me. So a person always think to work with more and more quality and intelligence to stand in front of him/her confidently.
I like to visit and find out new things what my competitor has innovated, but I dont "love" my competitor