Does an ex's pain show you that they still love you?

An old friend of mine recently broke up with her long-distance love because he wouldn’t commit and move to be with her. She was pretty devastated, but it wasn’t long before she started looking again. At the same time she was keeping up a correspondence with her ex because she really loves him.

She wrote, “At least I know he is still hurting about it like I am. During out last webcam, he’d seemed so cold and unfeeling, I thought that maybe he had just changed his mind about me but didn’t want to tell me that. Now I’m at least assured that he truly does still love me.”

I asked her why this was good, and she wrote, “I’ll tell you exactly why this is good. Because the pain of being no longer loved is worse than the pain of his psychological inability to come out here. Even if it never works out, knowing that he does still truly love me eases the pain greatly as opposed to his simply not wanting to be with me anymore.”

Can anyone explain this to me? She’s looking around for someone new and yet she remains happy to know her ex loves her despite the fact that he is too chicken to move to her area and live with her. She’s hoping he’ll change his mind, and sees his pain as a good thing? What is going on here?