<p><br></p><p><br></p><p>Why We Keep the People Who Hurt Us</p><p><br></p><p>(Even When We Know Better)</p><p><br></p><p>There’s a weird kind of magic in pain.</p><p><br></p><p>Not the romantic kind. The kind that makes you check your phone for someone who’s already forgotten you.</p><p>The kind that whispers, “Maybe if I was a little more chill... a little less emotional... they would’ve stayed.”</p><p><br></p><p>But here’s the thing no one really says out loud:</p><p><br></p><p>We don’t always want love.</p><p>Sometimes, we want familiarity.</p><p>And pain—especially the kind that looks like love—can feel familiar as hell.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Truth Bomb #1: They Hurt You, But They Felt Like Home</p><p><br></p><p>Let’s be real.</p><p><br></p><p>You didn’t fall for their kindness. You fell for the comfort in the chaos.</p><p>The same kind of chaos you grew up in.</p><p>That emotional hide-and-seek. That feeling of needing to earn love.</p><p>They triggered your survival instincts—not your soul.</p><p><br></p><p>They mirrored a wound so old you forgot where it started.</p><p><br></p><p>And when it hurt, it didn’t feel wrong.</p><p>It felt like something you were built to survive.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Truth Bomb #2: You Fell in Love With the Version You Built in Your Head</p><p><br></p><p>We keep people who hurt us because we didn’t fall in love with them.</p><p><br></p><p>We fell in love with:</p><p><br></p><p>The version of them we imagined</p><p><br></p><p>The potential we swore we saw</p><p><br></p><p>The dream they sold us in between apologies</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>That version was intoxicating.</p><p>But here’s the brutal truth: You can’t date someone’s potential.</p><p><br></p><p>You either love who they are, or you’re holding a ghost.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Truth Bomb #3: You Thought the Pain Meant It Was Real</p><p><br></p><p>Let’s not pretend.</p><p><br></p><p>Some part of you thought the pain proved it mattered.</p><p><br></p><p>Like, “If it hurts this much, it must be love, right?”</p><p>Like movies taught us love means suffering.</p><p>Like songs told us heartbreak is just part of the passion.</p><p><br></p><p>But that’s not love.</p><p>That’s emotional gambling.</p><p>You’re spinning the wheel, praying the next version of them finally chooses you.</p><p><br></p><p>But they won’t. Not fully. Because they already know they don’t have to.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Truth Bomb #4: You Didn’t Want Closure. You Wanted Control</p><p><br></p><p>We say we want closure. But let’s be honest:</p><p>We want a redo.</p><p>A comeback.</p><p>We want them to wake up, realize our worth, and beg us to stay.</p><p><br></p><p>But love doesn’t work like a Netflix rewrite.</p><p>No perfect scene. No last-minute monologue.</p><p>Just silence, space, and what we do next.</p><p><br></p><p>So we keep them—even if it’s just in our minds.</p><p>Because if we keep them, we don’t have to face the void.</p><p>And that void? It's scary.</p><p><br></p><p>But here’s the plot twist:</p><p>Peace feels like boredom when you’re addicted to survival mode.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Truth Bomb #5: You Didn’t Stay Because You’re Weak. You Stayed Because You’re Wired</p><p><br></p><p>You’re not dumb.</p><p>You’re not pathetic.</p><p>You’re not desperate.</p><p><br></p><p>You’re human.</p><p><br></p><p>Your nervous system got attached to the emotional rollercoaster.</p><p>Your brain linked inconsistency with intensity.</p><p>And now stillness feels suspicious.</p><p><br></p><p>But you’re not stuck.</p><p>You’re waking up.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Okay, So Now What?</p><p><br></p><p>You stop justifying their actions like it’s your fault.</p><p>You stop fantasizing about “what if” like it’s still on the table.</p><p>You stop romanticizing dysfunction and start craving peace.</p><p><br></p><p>You look in the mirror and say:</p><p>“They hurt me. I let them. But it ends here.”</p><p><br></p><p>You don’t need closure. You need clarity.</p><p>You don’t need them back. You need you back.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>The Plot Twist They Never Saw Coming?</p><p><br></p><p>You unlearn the idea that pain = love.</p><p>You walk away—not with a scream, but with silence.</p><p>You glow up emotionally.</p><p>You stop chasing ghosts and start building boundaries.</p><p><br></p><p>And one day, when they try to come back (because they will)—</p><p>you won’t be angry.</p><p>You’ll be over it.</p><p><br></p><p>Not because they changed.</p><p>But because you did.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>---</p><p><br></p><p>Because keeping someone who hurt you isn’t loyalty.</p><p>It’s self-abandonment.</p><p>And your comeback story deserves better!</p>
At the end of the month, we give out prizes in 3 categories: Best Content, Top Engagers and
Most Engaged Content.
Best Content
We give out cash prizes to 7 people with the best insights in the past month. The 7 winners are picked
by an in-house selection process.
The winners are NOT picked from the leaderboards/rankings, we choose winners based on the quality, originality
and insightfulness of their content.
Top Engagers
For the Top Engagers Track, we award the top 3 people who engage the most with other user's content via
comments.
The winners are picked using the "Monthly Engagers" tab on the rankings page.
Most Engaged Content
The Most Engaged Content recognizes users whose content received the most engagement during the month.
We pick the top 3.
The winners are picked using the "Monthly Contributors" tab on the rankings page.
Here are a few other things to know for the Best Content track
1
Quality over Quantity — You stand a higher chance of winning by publishing a few really good insights across the entire month,
rather than a lot of low-quality, spammy posts.
2
Share original, authentic, and engaging content that clearly reflects your voice, thoughts, and opinions.
3
Avoid using AI to generate content—use it instead to correct grammar, improve flow, enhance structure, and boost clarity.
4
Explore audio content—high-quality audio insights can significantly boost your chances of standing out.
5
Use eye-catching cover images—if your content doesn't attract attention, it's less likely to be read or engaged with.
6
Share your content in your social circles to build engagement around it.
Contributor Rankings
The Contributor Rankings shows the Top 20 Contributors on TwoCents a monthly and all-time basis.
The all-time ranking is based on the Contributor Score, which is a measure of all the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
The monthly score sums the score on all your insights in the past 30 days. The monthly and all-time scores are calcuated DIFFERENTLY.
This page also shows the top engagers on TwoCents — these are community members that have engaged the most with other user's content.
Contributor Score
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate your contributor score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
4
Comments (excluding replies)
5
Upvotes
6
Views
1
Number of insights published
2
Subscriptions received
3
Tips received
Below is a list of badges on TwoCents and their designations.
Comments