When a woman says she wants a “bad boy”, she is attracted to the excitement of a strong dominant man who somehow manages to do whatever the hell he wants and live life on his own terms. And lets face it, being the jerk or the bully or the asshole is generally sexier than being the dork or the chump or the loser.
It’s actually a pretty simple pychology. If you constantly berate someone and make them feel like shit, they will be that much more appreciative when you do something less shitty. If you are nice and perfect all the time, they learn to expect it and take it for granted.
Basically these sort of women suffer from an “any guy willing to date me and treat me with respect is not good enough for me” mentality.
Quite true. A good coach, for instance, will be a real hardass all the time. He’ll constantly berate everyone during practice, really tell them how slow, sloppy, weak they are at every opportunity. He’ll make you run wind sprints and “killers” until you puke, and then when you’re done, make you run some more. And then finally, when he decides he wants to, he’ll give you a compliment. Maybe nothing more than a nod of the head and “good job.” And, by God, that one compliment will mean so much. You will be fiercely loyal to that coach because you’ll know that you have earned his respect.
Yall go too far by illustrating the appeal in terms of sadistic coaches and drill seagents. Being mean is literally what a “bad boy” is about, and few women are trying to find a guy that berates them and makes them feel bad about themselves.
Think cats. Women like cats, right? But why? Let’s take a stereotypical cat. It isn’t abusive or mean. But it’s solitary, aloof, independent, and a bit more feral-like than your stereotypical dog. You let cats out at night to play, and sometimes they’ll come home all scratched up from fighting with strange animals. But you take care of them, just pleased that they are alive and came home to the place where they knew they can get care. They could have gone to someone else’s house, but they chose yours.
Cats reciprocate their love with a gentle purr; they don’t smother you with kisses like a dog does. Cats give you plenty of space so that you are able to miss them. Dogs are always by your side. Most importantly, cats act like they don’t need you, while dogs act the complete opposite. Cats are attractive animals precisely because they hang around you even though they don’t need to (at least that’s how they act).
Speaking for myself, I don’t have a strong urge to feel needed by a man. Getting needy vibes from someone puts me in nurturing, mama mode, which is incompatible with me having romantic feelings for them. Occasional vulnerability (i.e. cat getting scratched up and running home to be fixed) is different than neediness; women can be attracted to the former while fearing the latter. But a needy man makes women feel like mothers, not sexual partners.
Doting behavior combined with other tendencies (frequent calling, texting, emailing, requests to hang out, constant availability, being too agreeable to everything) spells dog-like need, not cat-like autonomy.
A bad boy doesn’t have to treat YOU badly. If he treats other people poorly, then he’s a bad boy, regardless of how much he appears to respect you personally.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking your stereotype of cats is overbroad - or so sez my very dog-like cat :D.
But I may just be biased because my two cats were really annoying last night with their persistent and clingy demands for attention. Of course they are neutered males and maybe that ties right back into this thread :p.
This is a good point and further muddles the definition of ‘bad boy’ (as I stated previously, I don’t see them at all as alpha males – more like lone wolves). The OP’s girlfriend seems to be into abusive jerks and feels better giving them a cutesy nickname. IMHO, bad boys may cut class and drive motorcycles but that doesn’t mean they’re not good boyfriends and giving lovers. But again, it’s a broad category.
The fact that you should break up with this woman is clear. Crystal.
Women are not fundamentally affection-seeking bags of compassion. Many of them want the man from the cover of the romance novel. Many of them want a tough guy with sex appeal.
You’re being emotionally abused. You have a grenade in your hand right now. She threw herself in your direction as you walked down the road of life and you caught her. You probably held on to her because you were walking through a boring part of town and thought it might make the trip more interesting. If you hold onto her, she will blow up in your face and you won’t know what hit you. Show her that you are tough - tell her you’re through with her and let her abuse some other “nice guy”.
Well, there’s considerate and accommodating, and then there’s considerate and accommodating, if you see what I mean. It’s one thing to be cheerful and agreeable if someone needs to move things around last minute once in a while, and something else entirely to be cheerful and agreeable when it happens on a regular basis, which is what the OP makes it sound like he’s doing. He may not be sacrificing all his desires for her, but it really does sound like he’s being rather a doormat.
I mean, he’s letting her unilaterally dictate terms he’s not comfortable with about the relationship as a whole without a murmur. He’s “finding a way to work things out” rather than saying no or expressing annoyance. He’s willing to do just about whatever it takes to avoid conflict with her. Doormat.
Mind you, I’m not saying he should be picking fights about stupid shit he doesn’t care about or unilaterally laying down the rules himself. But it really ought to be a two way street, and this relationship just plain isn’t that. It’s not that he’s willing to make sacrifices, it’s that he’s willing to make rather large ones and be the only one doing so that makes people conclude he doesn’t have a spine.