Ladies: Are you attracted to men who treat you poorly?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This thread hearkens back to the perennial saying that “nice guys finish last” or that “women are only attracted to jerks.” I’m just curious to see whether these notions apply to the women on the SDMB, and possibly discuss why these ideas are so prevalent in the first place. I mean, I imagine that there’s probably been some studies done to ascertain the truth about this topic, and I certainly dealt with it firsthand during my high school days. I don’t know how much these sayings would apply to mature adult women as opposed to their teenage counterparts.

So ladies, are you attracted to men who treat you poorly? Have you ever been attracted to those kinds of men? Why or why not?

2

Many people are attracted to those who have confidence. Confidence is sometimes present in people who are assholes. It’s not the asshole people are attracted to, it’s the confidence. To suggest that women are actively seeking men who treat them poorly is insulting and simplistic.

3

I’d rather be single for the rest of my life than be with a jerk.

4

I’ve been attracted to them in situations where I wasn’t looking for/ready for a serious long-term relationship.

I’ve specifically sought out partners who were not long-term relationship material because I knew that it’d be easier for both of us to disengage when the time comes. It makes the decision making easier and is less likely to end up with one of you heartbroken.

5

In my experience many women/girls go through a phase around age 14 to 22 (approximately) during which they are attracted to men/boys who do not treat them well. The length of the phase varies, and obviously isn’t true for everyone, but I had the phase and so did the majority of my female friends.

Reasons? Well if it was that simple it would be simple also to rectify. My suggestions are below:

  1. Low self-esteem, fairly prevalent in teenagers generally and girls particularly.
  2. ‘I can change him’ - a tempting proposition, can provide temporary boosts to self-esteem.
  3. Complete boredom, relieved by a bit of drama.
  4. Social conditioning in society generally which allows men to exert power over women - might have seen this in the family home, on TV, elsewhere, and it reinforces the concept.
  5. Tendency of some young men to recognise the opportunity to exploit the reasons above and improve chances of getting laid.
  6. Inexperience, uncertainty as to what is to be expected of a relationship.

Or more reasons I can’t think of right now.

I grew out of it as my self-esteem increased. I met my boyfriend when I was 26. Had I met him ten years earlier I would have friend-zoned him while I waited for The One to realise I was The One.

6

I have heard of it, and seen it, with women being all about the bad boy, and letting the good guy slip through their fingers.
The excuse I heard for it, was- that the relationship with the nice one lacked excitement, or the good guy was a bore.
Unfortunately, the alternative bad boy may turn out to be an abusive jerk.

7

Yeah, that’s true for me.
Maybe the asshole part had something to do with it too, I’m not sure (it’s a challenge, and I tend to want what I can’t have) but the confidence thing is a major reason.

8

No. Never have been. Maybe it’s something to do with always having had good guy friends, but I’m not going to deliberately spend time with a guy unless I *like *him. I wouldn’t be friends with a guy who treated me badly, why would I want to go out with one?

I was attracted to angst boys when I was younger, so maybe that was my equivalent. I outgrew it.

9

You have Couple A, which consists of Asshole Andy and Sweet Alice. Lots of drama, and everyone hears about the couple. Andy breaks Alice’s heart on a regular basis, she cries to all her friends, and the makeup and reunion dramas are every bit as thrilling and interesting for everyone involved. Andy’s infidelities are widely gossiped about.

Then you have couples B through Z. He might flirt a little too much with other women when they go out, she might sigh over certain male celebrities, but for the most part, there’s very little drama for their social circle to talk about.

Couple A will generate a lot of gossip, while the other couples generate almost none. So a lot of people look at Andy, and see that he gets a lot of companionship. However, he might not even be getting laid as often as the guys in couples B through Z, it’s just that he will TELL everyone when he scores. And even if he doesn’t score, he might say or imply that he has.

10

Totally agree with your post. When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I pined for several guys who I now recognize in hindsight were total assholes to me.
In my case, I attribute it to the “excitement” and drama that comes with loving a “bad boy”, not having enough experience seeing what healthy relationships look like, and yes being naive enough to think that I could reform and change a bad boy.

Like you, I also grew out of it. My current fiance has a heart of gold and treats me very well. I have no tolerance for assholes or bullies these days. Sometimes I do regret the time I wasted on guys who didn’t deserve my attention. It would have been pretty awesome if I had recognized the situations for what they were in time to tell them off. But mostly I am thankful that I never married one of those idiots. :slight_smile:

11

I think the attitude of “they must have low self-esteem” or “they are too naive to realize they are being exploited” is a bit patronizing towards adult women who are making active choices. Unless there is real actual abuse going on, a woman making a free choice is not a victim.

When a man “sticks his dick in the crazy”, we assume the sex must be really hot and warn him to wrap it up, enjoy the ride, and know when to get off. Men have a social script for “I’m in my 20s, I’m not ready to think about marriage, and I’m going to date all kinds of hot girls, crazy or not, and have fun with it without investing too much”

Women in their 20s do not have this script. There is this assumption for women that every relationship must be headed toward marriage, or else it’s a horrible failure, she’s probably been duped, and it’s all a bit of a shame.

This doesn’t match our modern reality, though, were women are not marrying in their early 20s, and are often as interested in screwing around, having hot sex, meeting new and interesting partners who are not necessarily marriage material, and generally just having fun. And this is what many women in those age groups do- they date the fun guys, without really worrying about how “good” they are to them because they are picking a sex-and-activity partner, not a life mate.

This creates a disconnect when they then go back to that script that every relationship must be about finding a life mate, and they try to put their good-times boy into that mold, and it’s a poor fit. Women are not taught to “wrap it up, enjoy the ride and know when to get off.” They are taught to treat every little relationship as if it is a deep, important emotional connection that they must protect at any cost. So the relationship starts hitting it’s natural end, and they are confused because it’s been satisfying their needs (fun, good sex, interesting experiences) but it’s not progressing along the script. Women end up putting emotional commitment into a partner that wasn’t really chosen for that commitment, and it gets ugly fast.

I think we’d see a lot fewer broken hearts if women were more comfortable admitting to themselves and others that at 21 they probably aren’t looking for their soul mate and basically want to have fun with hot dudes.

12

“Pick up artists” talk about the concept of “negs”. Backhanded complements designed to make a mark (or whatever their term) feel self conscious. This causes the mark to then seek approval and validation.

It sounds very similar to the psychology of abusive relationships, cults and corporate management. You figure out what a person “needs” (status, security, companionship, whatever), demonstrate you have it, instill in them that they aren’t “good enough”, they will figuratively kill themselves trying to win your favor.

13

The ones I’m attracted to treat me poorly, but not in the way I think is typically associated with the notion. They don’t cheat, or abuse me physically, or verbally. I’ve ended up with men who, once the relationship is a committed one kind of check out emotionally. According to my therapist, I subconsciously choose to partner with this type of man because they are not likely to leave me,and that stems from my abandonment issues caused by my father’s abrupt departure from my life when I was six. I don’t know if I believe her or don’t.

Some day I’d like to find someone who would just say what he means and mean what he says.

14

Hmm.

I’ve never been attracted to jerks or bad boys, even when I was a teenager. I just thought they were jerks, and I’d had enough nasty teasing to never want any more meanness. But then, I was never really pretty. So my theory is that jerks pour on the charm for pretty girls, who are then astonished when the jerkiness starts. Since they never bothered to aggressively flirt with not-particularly-sexy me, I never saw anything to be attracted to. If a fabulously handsome man pours on the slick charm for me, I’m not attracted, I’m deeply suspicious that he’s trying to sell me something I don’t want.
Theory #2: Girls, especially younger ones, are attracted to good-looking boys. Boys are likewise attracted to good-looking girls. If that’s your primary reason to be attracted to someone, who even notices personality? It’s not part of the equation. And very attractive people can often (not always!) be jerks, because they can get away with it.

Theory #3: Maybe this perception carries a trace of sour grapes. Might be a bit of “the best-looking 5% of women aren’t interested in my advances, therefore they are only interested in the mean guys. I’d never treat that angel like that.” Has nothing to do with the fact that Meanieboy is a lot better-looking and/or richer and/or more interesting than you are. They must like him because he’s bad.

Theory #4, as has been well stated above: some girls just love drama, and nice fellows don’t offer enough of that. If you think romance is supposed to be dramatic, maybe you might seek that conflict. I always thought romance was supposed to be happy, so that’s not my thing.
The follow-up question: if you are in a long-term relationship, did you tame the mean boy of your dreams or grow out of an attraction to their drama and BS? Are you still attracted to mean/bad boys? I’m coming up on my twentieth anniversary next month, so my weirdo “nice guy” fetish has worked out well for me.

15

Depends. Do they look good?

16

I’m not attracted to guys who are jerks. But I am reeled in by guys who are nice who eventually turn in to jerks (possibly because I’m too nice?) and then I don’t know when to kick them to the curb, and I end up putting up with a lot of jerkishness.

So anyone who hears the end of my story might assume I’m always with jerks but I swear to Og they are nice to start off with.

17

Many jerks are. But there are usually warning signs.

18

I was, a few years ago. But since that, I’ve realized a few family issues that probably pushed me in that direction, in a way. The whole “you’re infatuated by traits of your abusive situation,” held true. At the time, I didn’t want to see it, but the guy was quite an ass. He also believed he could get away with anything, as did my father. The whole “yeah, I’m gonna do what I want and forget the rest of the world,” thing. The guy and I argued in ways that I’d seen my parents undertake as I grew up. Hell, I tried to “save” him in some of the ways my mother has grown to support my father–always picking up after him, to the point of being a doormat. Thankfully, I eventually had enough of the bullshit and got out of that situation.

19

My most abusive relationship was the guy who took my virginity (there was one another jerk who came close many years later.)

We were together for an astounding 3 months, and in that time he took away my self-esteem, self respect, confidence, virginity, money, nearly my credit rating, nearly got me black-listed from rental properties, friends, reputation. Pretty impressive in such a short timeframe, but what can I say, the guy was an overachiever.

I could go into the gritty details - drug dealers showing up to my house and trying to take my furniture to pay off his debts, his friends coming over and being openly disrespectful to me and then dropping off their laundry for me to do, the tears and retribution any time I dared suggest that maybe this relationship wasn’t exactly what I was looking for and my eventual (shameful) escape by pushing him onto another poor girl, his parents coming over to talk to me after it all went to hell and him threatening to put me in hospital - but really your question was why would I go for a guy like this? I was a bright, attractive, assertive 19 year old and I’ve asked myself the same question, even at the time I couldn’t understand how I’d gotten into this situation.

I think the truth is, like most people - especially in the early dating years - I didn’t really put myself out there, the only people who were doing that, the ones making the approach, are the JERKS. Let’s say you’ve got two guys, one is Nice Guy (NG) and the other is Bad Boy (BB), they both meet a girl at a bar. NG gets to know the girl over time, focuses all of his attention on getting with said girl. In the meantime BB has approached 20 different women including said girl, as has every other BB in the bar - because BB sees women as an interchangable commodity.

Once they get their nasty little hooks in they work on ways to undermine you so they can maintain their stranglehold, isolating you from your support networks, destroying your self-esteem.

So I don’t think women are necessarily more attracted to BB, I think it’s just a more likely result on the odds because of the commodity factor (until we wise up.)

In my mid-twenties I met a guy who was devastatingly handsome, and English, and a complete asshole. I just hated him so much but all of my coworkers were swooning (we worked in a bar with a backpackers upstairs.) He ended up going out with this beautiful girl, the bar manager, and I was gobsmacked that she would even give him the time of day. I’ll never forget, one day she turned to me with a dreamy look on her face and said “I can’t believe he chose me, I mean, he could be with anyone and he chose me!” I couldn’t believe she didn’t see what a brazen creep this guy was, so maybe there’s an element of validation in taming the BB - I really don’t see it.

I also think it would be remiss not to note that men seem to take a lot longer to stop chasing the crazy - I’ve often scratched my head when I’ve been overlooked for some hot mess who’s obviously only going to bring pain. In fact, even my partner was frequently dazed and confused by my rational and equitable approach - when I insisted on paying half for everything (or at least take turns) he just assumed I didn’t want to owe him anything, when I sat and spoke to him quietly when he pissed me off he found that a lot more intimidating than tantrums and tears would have been. So I don’t think that women have cornered the market on bad taste in partners! :slight_smile:

20

On a similar note, I know a good few guys who seem attracted to the “bad girl” and been burned. I don’t think it’s a gender-specific thing.