DSO: Dating Bad Boys

It sounds cliche, but how many of us have witnessed or been a part of this scenario?

A pretty girl cries about her lack of love. She wants somebody that will be nice to her for once. She wants a soulmate. She wants a best friend. She wants the knight in shining armor. She does have a platonic male friend that she is very close to. He's your typical nice guy. He's always there for her. He's caring, he's sweet, he's loving. He's everything that she says she wants. But something is obviously missing. He has twice asked her out in a very nice guy indirect way, so as not to be abrupt and assholeish. And he's still getting nowhere with her. He's stuck in the quintessential friend zone. He has resigned himself to his lower status.

And then, like all guys in the friend zone, he watches as the girl he is so madly in love with goes for the most ridiculously assholeish guy's imaginable: The jocks, the stoners, the dangerous guys. The bad boys. She does it again and again. And always with the same result. These guys really get her emotional engine going, but they are all resistant to settling down with her in a committed relationship. They just can't be pinned down.

The nice guy friend is baffled and begins to lose respect for his female friend. You can only watch somebody make an irrational decision so many times before you start to question their sanity. As a result, he no longer has interest in being her emotional tampon. She notices him pulling away. She is no longer getting the validation and emotional support that she grew accustomed to. She approaches her male friend and he lets her have it. He tells her that he's tired of her idiotic ways and that she needs to wake up and realize that he's the type of guy that she needs. Not all of those assholes. That's when the girl realizes that the nice guy friend wasn't so nice after all. He was only hanging around her and listening to her emote endlessly because he wanted her. He wasn't a true friend. He was a guy that just wanted to get into her pants. He was playing the long game, waiting for his chance to swoop in and take down his prey. So they part ways as friends and she goes on to dating a buffet of assholes until she hits her 30s and she finally realizes that she needs to quote settle down.

Wow, this is a common scenario.

I saw it with girls that I was friends with in high school. I saw it with college girls. And then I saw it with some adult friends in my current social circle. Women just love bad boys. But why? Why would they do something so obviously irrational? Why do young girls consistently chase these guys? And why do wives break up their families to be with such obvious loser degenerates?

Well, let's first look at the very basic biological makeup of the bad boy. After all, when we're talking about chemistry and attraction, we're primarily talking about biological markers that make a woman say, whoa, who is that guy? If these markers and signals are strong enough, the most rational of women will find themselves doing very irrational things just to spend time with a guy.

Bad boys exhibit what you may call hypermasculinity. More specifically, these bad boy types tend to do things that signal I have higher than normal testosterone. Such as:

1. Risky behavior. These guys are often thrill seekers. They're the type of guy that rides a motorcycle. He goes skydiving, bull riding, deep-sea diving, etc. They may also partake in things like illegal activities, drugs.
2. They're commitment averse. They refuse marriage. They don't want to be tied down. They value their independence above all else. They are selfish, but to a fault.
3. They are emotionally unavailable. They're not the type to come home to the wife and cry about their bad day at the office. They're probably not the type to share much of anything with their woman. They have very low anxiety and very low neediness.

Now, women aren't scientists going around studying men and trying to determine which ones have higher than normal levels of testosterone. You won't hear Sally say something like, I like Bob, but his jaw seems a little soft and he seems a little too risk averse. His estrogen levels may be too high. Low testosterone for sure. No, they will just go by how the man makes them feel. If a man takes part in risky on the edge behavior, he is exciting. He is thrilling. He is a human roller coaster ride. You will often hear women say, he just makes me feel alive.

Take a woman who has played the part of the Good Girl for decades. She lost her feeling of independence. She grew up in a strict, conservative environment. She had to raise six kids, etc. And she is just waiting for the quintessential bad boy to waltz in to her life and take her away from the boredom. The new man lives on the edge 24-7 and the woman forgot what the edge even looks like. As I've said many times, women want what they can't have and that bad boy is the epitome of unavailable. He may let her into his world momentarily, but the second he feels that she has crossed the line into domesticity and comfort... Well, out she goes. He is the type of guy that takes her to the edge, shows her what life in his world is all about, and then promptly ignores her text messages for a couple of weeks. All because she suggested that he buy a new rug for his apartment. The message is clear. You are not my wife. You are not my mom. You are not my caregiver. I don't need you. You are here for fun. Got it?

The irony of the ultra masculine bad boy is that he elicits a feeling of protector to the women who swoon over him. He is tough. He is on the edge. A little dangerous. Unpredictable. All things that say, in very basic terms, say, I am the kind of guy you want on your side in case you are in danger. Unfortunately for them, a lot of women with such men discover that the bad boy's selfishness and independence trumps whatever protector instinct that he may have. The woman runs to the man for help when she needs it most, and she is treated like a nuisance and ignored for another three weeks. Then he draws her back in with his charm. And the cycle repeats again and again.

Most of the men that I chat with are admitted nice guys who are working on overcoming their toxic habits. But a few fall under the umbrella of former bad boy. These guys will tell me stories of the harem of girlfriends they had in the past, the crazy stuff they did, the adventures they had, the independence that they nurtured. That is until she came along. Women who chase bad boys have one overwhelming goal. Domesticate him. Neuter him. Make him settle down. Make babies. Turn him into that protector that she needs. Don't let him go. As you may have guessed by now, this doesn't turn out too well. Once she succeeds, the man is morphed into the typical dad role and she starts losing interest. It's a story as old as time.

Men come to epiphanies about the attraction of bad boys, and they swing the relationship pendulum all the way over to supreme asshole territory. And it works. For a time. Then it becomes a little ridiculous. Then they notice the caliber of women they are attracting, and they're lacking, to say the least. Then they resort to nice guy behavior again. And lo and behold, lots of female friends. But very few, if any, marathon sessions like what he experienced as the asshole. As with all things, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. That's the essence of the advice laid out in the dead bedroom fix. Know when to pull away. Know when to push. Know when to be sweet. Know when to put up boundaries. Value your independence. But also don't fear vulnerability. Nobody said that this shit was easy.