Being hurt tells you something about yourself, not only about whoever caused it. If it stings that someone doesn’t love you, that sting means you know what you want out of love — and that you love yourself enough to hate being short-changed.

Insult reads the same way. When being thought less of hurts, it’s because you hold yourself as worth more than the treatment you’re getting. Neither direction of love sits comfortably, either: taking less than you believe you deserve is hard, and giving more than is deserved is hard too.

It runs in reverse as well. “When a person hurts other people on purpose, and it pleases them, then they don’t know how to love” — and probably don’t love themselves as they ought to. Disrespect for others usually points back to a shortage of self-respect.