Then these men were not “bad boys” in the sense that other women I have known use the term. If you hear a woman say she “likes bad boys” then don’t assume she means a guy like you describe. It isn’t a scientific term, it’s going to mean different things to many people.
I can guarantee you that for at least SOME women it really does just mean “guy with tattoos and leather jacket”, though. A good friend of mine who’s always had a thing for “bad boys” did date some leather-clad jerks in her day, but she’s now happily married to a ruggedly handsome, tattooed, guitar-playing man who is also a decent, hardworking man who treats her with love and respect. The “bad boy” look always got her attention, but what she always really wanted was a guy with the look she found attractive and who also was a good person. But of course it’s a lot easier to tell if someone is physically attractive to you than it is to find out how they’re going to treat you long term. Lots of people make mistakes along the way.
ETA:
Right. The few women I’ve known who did genuinely seem to seek out jerks all had serious issues themselves.
That’s exactly why I did not say that “Women like a**holes.” I didn’t even say that most women like those types. Rather, I said that it’s foolish to reduce the “bad boy” appeal to one’s simple preference for tattoos, motorcycles, leather jackets, and electric guitars.
It’s true that seriously messed up people will tend to find each other. Between them and the completely stable types though, you’re going to find a broad continuum of personality types. I’ve known a good number of women (and two close friends in particular) who are otherwise well-adjusted, but who find themselves irresistibly drawn to the bad boy type. These ladies would never go for a serial killer or a drug pusher, but they do find themselves drawn to guys who have a certain cocky arrogance or who otherwise don’t treat people well.
The seriously messed up folks will tend to be drawn to others who are seriously messed up. That doesn’t mean that more normal folks are immune to that mentality, though. Even otherwise well-adjusted people can be drawn to those types in varying degrees, just as a man with a noble spirit can find himself more attracted to a ravishing beauty than to her sweeter but more plain-looking friend.
Eh, I disagree–if anything, it’s the “woman that thinks she’s making guys uncomfortable by being successful/educated, but in reality she’s got some kind of universal dealbreaker of a personality trait.”
Yes…guys THINK because they are too nice that women reject them when, in reality, it is something else.
For women, they THINK it is because they are successful/educated/whatever when in reality guys look at her and think “wow it would really suck to be in a relationship with that bitch”.
Obviously, there is a huge range of personalities out there, but every woman I’ve ever known who was like this–well adjusted otherwise but attracted to jerks (and not just emotionally independent guys, but actual jerks) either matured and got over it OR spiraled down into increasing craziness/instability in other areas–the attraction to men that treated them poorly was a symptom of much deeper issues that eventually manifested themselves.
Much of this has to do with how you define success, too. The nicest guys I know–the ones that are genuinely kind and considerate and selfless and empathic–are married by 25, and before that had one or two long-term relationships. A few are serial monogamists, in the 3-4 years living together/ 6 months single/3-4 years living with new someone mold. The whiny “nice guys” want the life style of a player–lots of random sex and short-term uncomplicated hook-ups, but they don’t understand that moving in that world requires a certain callousness on everyone’s part, and lacking it makes you unattractive to the sort of people that you are approaching.
My sister read this a long time ago and asked me to give her an opinion. IIRC the basic premise is that some (many? It was a NY Times Bestseller) girls grow up with fathers who may be distant, abusive, alcoholic, whatever. They form their notions of what a “normal” relationship is during those years based on how daddy treats mommy.
This kind of learning is vicarious, subconscious, imprinted, whatever—they don’t realize they’re internalizing these norms, but they do. If they meet a guy who treats them decently, they think he’s not for them. “A guy who doesn’t scream? Daddy wasn’t like that. This man is weak!” Not that it actually crystallizes in their minds as a thought made of words…it just doesn’t feel normal.
When she does meet a jerk, she wants to change him…the dynamics are that she’s really trying to win her father’s love. My WAG is that if she does change him, she’ll dump him.
It’s been 15 years or more since I read it but that was the upshot as I recall. Some may say it’s psychobabble but the bestseller thing makes me think it’s more common than we’d like to admit.
This is related to what Manda was saying, but not the same.
It is a sound observation, IMO. Long ago, I was a ‘Nice Guy’ exactly what you describe above. After many rejections, I became really pissed off and went down a ‘semi-bad boy’ route…my behavior became more jerkish.
I was more successful. At the time, I considered it a validation of my complaints about women when I was a ‘Nice Guy’. In reality, looking back it was not because I was behaving more jerkish…but I was behaving with more personality.
You have to fall in love with SOMETHING. You need something to grab onto…like velcro. Nice guys are perfectly ‘smooth’ - behaving in a way that avoids conflict. There is nothing to grab onto. So women don’t know why they don’t love that nice guy…they just don’t. There is nothing there to stick.
So, when I started acting more jerkish…I grew velcro
You’ll get no argument from me on that point. That would be consistent with what I’ve observed.
I just object to the notion that women are either seriously messed up individuals who are attracted to the same or stable adults who want nothing of the sort. That’s an awfully naive view of reality, since adults can be found all along the spectrum.
I think that that’s an excellent explanation. Right on.
In that light, a Nice Girl is pretty much the same thing. Last year I went on a date with someone who was incredibly nice – to the point of having no personality at all. I couldn’t talk to her about anything, because she seemed afraid of making a single wrong move. Every question I asked her was answered with mono-syllabic grunts. She wouldn’t even look me in the eyes! I could not get out of that situation fast enough.
Another explanation I’ve heard about Nice Guys is that they’re still stuck in child mode. When we’re little boys and something goes wrong, we cry and pout and look to mommy for approval. And she gives it to us. She can’t help it, because we’re so adorable. It’s when we grow older (but not up), it’s no longer adorable, it’s disgusting. But we keep trying what worked so well for us in the past.
I do not know who said it, but whomever mentioned that a greater majority of this issue boils down to confidence.
The “jerks” seem to exude it to a point of ridiculousness
The “perfect guys” (in a girl’s eyes) is one one who has it, but doesn’t flaunt it horribly (think of the guys who flirt a bunch, but don’t automatically jump in the sack with you)
The “nice guys” seem to be the ones who are always “best friends” because they aren’t confident enough to go with it. Matching this with the myriad of you who said that a “nice guy” tends to be a “clingy guy” really describes the situation perfectly.
There are TONS of guys (and I can head the bunch) who know perfectly well that they can be a perfect boyfriend, but lack the confidence to actually try to do something because hell, it’s only a matter of time before you find someone better anyway.
My personal mentality describes the semi-topic-agreed upon “nice guy” to a T (cups…ha ha):I know that I could be a fine partner. I am attracted to the smart girl WAY more than the bimbo, (a lot of the girls here just in their posts seem to strike my fancy)…but I have absolutely NO confidence in myself or my abilities to find a mate. Even when a girlfriend is attained, the relationship seems to be just a ticking time bomb for an eventual breakup. Good girls are a premium, having one and losing her is a devastating experience that only fuels a downward spiraling fire. It seems that I don’t have the confidence to get someone, and getting someone just seems to end in losing them, then losing them makes me scared to get someone, so I don’t, and end up being a nice guy.
Don’t think of the above as some pity party rant on how I am a terrible person, nor is it some call for sympathy/compliments/"awwww"s. It is simply a true to life example of what everyone is talking about.
A few years ago, I posted in another “Nice Guy” thread that the female equivalent would be “Opposite Girl”.
You know, the one who asks “does this make me look fat-be honest!” If you tell her no, you’re lying, but obviously you can’t say yes! They want you to do this or that for them-but obviously, she can’t tell you WHAT it is-because then it won’t mean anything!
THEN she whines about not being liked for her “intelligence.”
This reminds me of a guy I knew in grad school. He was a nice guy, but…he was the kind of guy people say “he’s a nice guy, but…” about. I’ll call him “George” because he had the misfortune to resemble a young George Costanza. Worse still, he had little in the way of a personality. It was almost impossible to have a conversation with him. He was so careful about avoiding conflict or causing offense (with regard to women at least, maybe he was more relaxed around other men) that he almost never expressed an opinion about anything. If he did, he’d apologize.
No joke, I once heard George apologize for not liking ketchup. Several of us had gone to lunch after class, and another classmate of ours got up to get some ketchup for her fries and offered to bring George some too. He said “No thanks, I don’t like ketchup with my fries…oh, I’m sorry, you just said you wanted ketchup, I didn’t mean to…” And he was serious. He seemed genuinely concerned that he might have offended her. I’m sure his goal was just to be nice, but he came across as weak and spineless.
As far as I could tell George was a nice enough person in the sense that he wasn’t mean or petty, but I can’t really say anything about him beyond that. He was tolerated socially by others in our department, but I don’t think anyone really liked him. There was nothing to like. Nothing to stick to, as you say. I suspect that his real problem was a lack of confidence and that he was trying to be totally inoffensive to compensate for not being handsome or charming. But he might as well have had “PLEASE WIPE YOUR FEET” tattooed across his forehead. Total doormat.
To his credit, although he did complain about his lack of success with women I never once heard George go into the whole “I’m such a Nice Guy, but women only like jerks!” routine. He kept on trying, and last I heard of him he’d just joined an online personals site and had a couple of dates with women he met that way.
Hoo boy, where to start…the one thing I’ll say right up front is how many stereotypes are buzzing around in here-we need something akin to a bugzapper to kill them all…
But there would have to be multiple axes of attractiveness, wouldn’t there? The one thing I am absolutely NOT buying from this thread is the One Size Fits All theory. Woman A could be attracted to Man Z because of his warmth & gently playful manner, Woman C finds Man X’s brooding Byronic nature to be oddly compelling, while Woman E loves Man V for his silly sense of humor and spontaneity. None of these men are “jerkish” by any stretch, they don’t have much in common with each other, but they certainly do have “handles” without having to be A-Holes about it.
The subtext I’m gathering here is that you had better go down the Straight & Narrow Be A Jerk route to attract someone, and I’ll call that BS on that right here and now. Our society is much more complicated than the African Plains were 50,000 years ago, certainly there are many things about the opposite sex nowadays which we can find fascinating? [Don’t get me started on those porn bimbos who all look alike…] Or perhaps my idealism is butting heads with reality once again.
I don’t think that BlinkingDuck was saying that a man needs to be a jerk to have “velcro”, but rather that a man who thinks the way to impress women is to be perfectly agreeable and inoffensive all the time is setting himself up to fail. Different women go for different types of men, but very few are looking for a guy who has no interests or opinions. And the women who want a man who’s nothing but a doormat aren’t worth having.
Maybe you’ve seen the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America. Murphy plays an African prince who early in the film is presented with the woman who’s been groomed to be his wife. She’s an attractive woman, but when he asks to have a conversation with her he finds that she won’t do anything but agree with him. He asks her what kind of food she likes, and she says whatever kind he likes. He asks her to hop up and down and bark like a dog and she is only too happy to oblige him. The prince is totally put off and decides to go to America to find a more interesting, independent bride.
I remember a past “Nice Guy” thread here where the guy explained that he was nice because if he had a girlfriend he’d sacrifice his own desires to do whatever she wanted, like going to a restaurant he hated because she liked it. But no healthy woman is dreaming of a guy who’ll choke down food he hates just for her. A man like that would do better to develop his own tastes and find a woman with compatible (not necessarily identical) tastes. My former classmate George wasn’t winning any points with women by being hesitant to express even a condiment preference. He didn’t need to be more of a jerk (“No I don’t want any ketchup, you stupid cow!”), but he could have stated an opinion while still being perfectly nice.
