The Truth About Bad Boys

by Gwen Cooper — June 6, 2007

As a sort of epilogue to my "Romancing the Con" tale of the last few posts, I wanted to address the question that kept coming up on the comment boards and in the emails I got from readers--namely, "Why do we keep falling for the 'bad boys'?"

There are some people out there who are vicarious thrill seekers--who think that whatever is dangerous is sexy and exciting, but that's not what I'll talk about here today. This seems like a fairly straightforward mind-set (bad boy = great sex), and though it may not end up being the healthiest lifestyle choice, I can't come down too hard on people having great sex who want the great sex to continue at all costs. We've all been there, no?

I'm talking about the kind of guy who takes you for a ride--cheats, lies, steals, betrays, maybe even yells or hits--until, six months to a year later, you're finally forced to pull the plug, at which point you spend the next several years searching your soul and shaking your fists at the heavens, demanding, "Why? Why did I let this go on so long?"

To some extent, I blame the way women are raised to believe that being "nice" and "understanding" are two of the most feminine and valuable virtues we can possess. Most of us would rather be "good people" than otherwise (a noble impulse in and of itself, don't get me wrong), and none of us wants to be the girl who calls someone a liar when in fact he is telling the truth, or turns her back on someone who might really end up needing us. Again, these are noble impulses, but less so when they cause us to sacrifice all common sense for an arbitrary--and half-baked--notion of the "higher good." If you find yourself in the position where you're justifying your continued relationship with a guy by telling yourself things like, "I'm the kind of woman who stands by her man," chances are pretty good you're standing by a guy who doesn't deserve your loyalty.

And I think very little has damaged the collective relationship philosophy of generations of women than the "Beauty and the Beast" story. In this tale, as you'll remember, a beautiful young maiden (virgin) named Beauty is kidnapped (raped) by a rough, abusive monster--and, by falling in love with him, breaks the magic spell that made him a beast and transforms him into a sweet, loving, handsome prince. The kind who you just know is, like, completely in touch with his feelings and totally supportive of Beauty's career goals, and who probably gives her hours of oral pleasure without ever asking for any reciprocation.

The moral of this story is clearly, "If you love him enough, you can change him." It's an idea we've all seen played out in countless TV shows, movies, and dime-store novels--the notion that the love of a good woman can transform a man. And while it's an enormously flattering concept--because who among us wouldn't like to think we have the power to make someone else a better person?--my guess is that it's something that almost never happens in real life. I used to have a friend who was fond of saying, "People don't change; they only become more of what they are." I think she was right on the money.

If experience has taught me anything, it's that if you suspect you're with a jerk, you probably are. If you're in a relationship that feels bad but you keep hoping it'll change, it probably won't. If you have to come up with excuses and rationales to justify to your friends why you're with this guy in the first place, you're probably with the wrong guy.

On the upside, summer is possibly the best time of the year for finding new love. When shopping around for your dream relationship over the next few months, remember you're not in the market for a fixer-upper. You're looking for something you can drive right off the show-room floor.

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.