We are surrounded by good guys and bad boys, and at one point or another we have fallen in love with one of them. It's pretty easy to differentiate between the two, because one will ultimately break your heart while the other will have their heart broken by you. I'm kidding. A bad boy isn't always a douchebag the same way a good guy is incapable of breaking your heart. But this dichotomy got me thinking, why do we find ourselves liking the bad boy image so much?
Let's get to it:
I have a soft spot for bad boys the same way many teenage girls do. For definitive purposes, bad boys aren't equivalent to assholes; bad boys are simply emotionally distant men whose dating history is longer than the script for The Lord of the Rings. Rebellious men with leather jackets, slicked back hair, tattoos and a penchant for mild drugs are pretty much my kryptonite. I always find myself gravitating towards those with a pinch of arrogance and a dash emotional unavailability. Even now at the cessation of my adolescence, I still look at them in awe. I never really stopped to think as to why I have this attraction towards them. Is it their sly charm? Their 5 o'clock shadow? Their heart-melting smirk? Their chiseled jawbone?
No. Although their appearance might have something to do with the adoration of many girls, it is not the only factor. Sure, we are attracted to confidence like moths to a flame, and perhaps bad boys do have that je ne sais quoi in their walk that we love (it's a mix between 'i just had a hip injury' and 'my legs weigh 60 pounds each'), but ultimately, what draws us in to these men is the fact that they are not drawn to us. And when they are, we take it as the ultimate compliment.
Bad boys have a way of placing themselves on a pedestal without us doing it to them. We look up at them as if we are not on the same level. We automatically become the reacher and them the settler, even though that's not always the case. In turn, whenever a bad boy chooses us to be his Girl of the Month (or Week), we feel special, different, and given the unsolicited task of fixing said bad boy.
Many women have this inner desire to help people, which isn't necessarily a flaw, but sometimes it's pretty obvious in relationships. We like fixing people because if we do successfully manage to heal a childhood wound and band-aid someone's internal scar, it will mean that we are special. That out of all his past ex-girlfriends, only you had the power to fix this broken man. So we chase after these bad boys because we believe that we can make them finally fall in love. We long to make them cry and open up because we have this yearning to be special and to be seen as special. We like them because the more broken they are, the more special we will feel when we fix them. Or if we fix them.
After all, why would we want to be loved by nice guys who will give us their hearts on a silver platter when we can be loved by aloof and cold-hearted men who give us nothing?
We keep thinking we're special and different than all the other girls. That all his ex-girlfriends were nothing but playthings except for us. But what makes you think that you are not another number on a list (or in Barney's case, a scrapbook)? We use bad boys to satiate our craving for uniqueness when in reality, we don't need self-centered assholes* to do anything for us.
*A shout out to all the self-proclaimed bad boys out there, not all of you are self-centered assholes. I understand that many of you were screwed over once (or twice) and have sworn off emotions altogether. But yes, some of you are self-centered assholes. Sue me.
When a bad boy picks us out like items off a menu, we feel this sense of thankfulness, or perhaps that's just me. My already wavering self-esteem will go through the roof if someone I deem to be out of my league chooses me (me, a girl who flicks boogers at walls and pees in the shower), and I know that this is the case for many people. Because of this, we seem to pardon many of his mistakes because we are so grateful to have his arm wrapped around us. Bad boys have one too many Get Out Of Jail Free Cards because we keep on thinking we can fix those flaws of his.
Can we all stop with the fixing and the self-pity? Can we stop undertaking bad boys like a perpetual assignment? Can we stop needing bad boys to make us believe that we are special? You aren't. I'm sorry to break your bubble there and negate the entire message of The Lego Movie, but you are not special. In the words of Tyler Durden from Fight Club, “You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else." Perhaps in life you are special, but in the story of you and some random bad boy that caught your eye in class or in a club, you are not. You might be special in the eyes of your future husband or your mother, but more often than not, we are not the Special Someone to snap a bad boy from their streak of one night stands. Just because you see Ryan Gosling fall head over heels for the quirky Emma Stone in Crazy, Stupid, Love doesn't mean you are the Emma to his Ryan. Wake up, ye ordinary maiden. Stop trying to pry open the thoughts of bad boys for your benefit.
We shouldn't have this mentality that somehow our awesomeness will rub off on them and that they will finally fall in love and settle down. This isn't Ghost of Girlfriend's Past or A Walk To Remember. Your love life isn't written by Nicholas Sparks, so stop going for the bad boys in pursuit of being The One. You shouldn't work your ass off to be the special girl for him because he should already see you as one. It isn't your duty to crack open his chest and examine his heart, it's your duty to be happy with someone who you don't have to break your back for. Here's a rule of thumb; if you have to change him to make him love you, then you are not for him, and he is not for you.
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