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Why are so many girls attracted to bad boys.

Drama and danger are attractive, exciting. The settled isn't. That simple.
 
Superfly said:
I've always been attracted to the "bad boy." I have, and I have no reason why. I will say that, as a younger girl, I would gravitate towards them and it would always end up going South. As I got older, and smarter, and more sure of myself, well - I still like the bad boys, but it's more of a "look but don't touch" thing. I just admire them from afar. Hell, I know what works, and bad boys it ain't. ;)


(plus, and I've said this before on here, no woman wants a fish. You give a woman everything she wants, and she'll walk all over you and then cheat on you with your polar opposite.)
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So...bad boys make you "go down south"?

*flips collar*
 
James D Hill said:
Why are moody pricks who may or may not thrash on their ladies so popular with the ladies? I have never understood it. Have any of you? Why are moody jerks attractive to the ladies? Answers please.
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Because many women do not have the self esteem to believe they deserve better.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
Perhaps they are not the losers that you think they are. After all, they clearly are winning, in an area where you clearly are not.
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So you're suggesting that women might find someone else more appealing than a stuck-in-the-60s stoner? Oh, surely not. :mrgreen:
 
I'm going to simplify ONE of the reasons: From what I've observed: woman like making bad boys be good just for her.
 
Goshin said:
So you're suggesting that women might find someone else more appealing than a stuck-in-the-60s stoner? Oh, surely not. :mrgreen:
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Good question.

Let's ask someone who has considerable past experience with “stuck-in-the-60s stoners”.

Seanette said:
Fake quote to get Seanette's attention.
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What do you think, Seanette? What do you find more appealing: a “stuck-in-the-60s stoner”, or a stodgy, conservative “Jesus freak” as Mr. Hill likes to call me?
 
Sane, responsible adults are most appealing to me, so let's just say that petulantly immature stoners who refuse to admit that the hippie movement had some bad disconnects from reality are NOT going to attract me. ;)
 
Because women tend to be nurturers and think they can 'fix' the bad boys. It's like taming a wild animal...exciting and beneficial.

I'm a nurturer and chose to spend my nurturing on animals and gardens. Never had the patience for self-centered, self-destructive boys/men.
 
I recall reading a study lately about pick up artists, who usually display a fairly a high level of hostile sexism (i.e. considering the other sex inferior) and general douchery, and their success rate with picking up.

The results were essentially that they only manage to pick up women who are also sexist, but in the benevolent direction (i.e. sexist in the direction of considering the other sex superior).

So in other words, messed up people attract each other. Women who hate themselves go for men who like mistreating women. Women who don't hate themselves don't. I've been saying this forever, but now someone has done the damn study, even though this should be kind of obvious.

"Women" are not attracted to bad boys. Screwed up women are attracted to screwed up men.

So if you are losing all your opportunities to douchebags, I think you should examine your dating preferences.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
I recall reading a study lately about pick up artists, who usually display a fairly a high level of hostile sexism (i.e. considering the other sex inferior) and general douchery, and their success rate with picking up.

The results were essentially that they only manage to pick up women who are also sexist, but in the benevolent direction (i.e. sexist in the direction of considering the other sex superior).

So in other words, messed up people attract each other. Women who hate themselves go for men who like mistreating women. Women who don't hate themselves don't. I've been saying this forever, but now someone has done the damn study, even though this should be kind of obvious.

"Women" are not attracted to bad boys. Screwed up women are attracted to screwed up men.

So if you are losing all your opportunities to douchebags, I think you should examine your dating preferences.
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That depends on how one defines "bad boys." Not all bad boys are pick up artists.

As was pointed out a little earlier in this thread, they tend to come in a couple of different flavors. The major thing they all tend to share in common is at least some element of perceived danger, strength, and social dominance or independence.

That has a lot more to do with the innate female attraction to "Alpha Male" personalities than it does any kind of "self-hate."

By and large, "pick up artists" actually aren't "Alpha Males," so much as betas who got sick of striking out all the time, and therefore adopted a false and exaggerated "Alpha Male" persona for themselves with deliberately dishonorable intent.
 
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Gathomas88 said:
That depends on how one defines "bad boys." Not all bad boys are pick up artists.

As was pointed out a little earlier in this thread, they tend to come in a couple of different flavors. The major thing they all tend to share in common is at least some element of perceived danger, strength, and social dominance or independence.

That has a lot more to do with the innate female attraction to "Alpha Male" personalities than it does any kind of "self-hate."

By and large, "pick up artists" actually aren't "Alpha Males," so much as betas who got sick of striking out all the time, and therefore adopted a false and exaggerated "Alpha Male" persona for themselves with deliberately dishonorable intent.
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Nope, that's true, but they do display a quintessential trait of the larger species, which is a disregard for women. Therefore I don't think it's much of a leap to say this probably applies to one degree or another to most of their douchey cousins as well.

I would argue pretty much all douchbags are "betas," as you call it. As we have conversed about before, people who are well-adjusted and dominant feel no need to be douches. Their dominance does not need to be reinforced by fantasies of being immortal or having power over weaker people (and by weaker, I mean self-loathing); you're mistaking dominance with sociopathy, which is not surprising seeing that our society doesn't seem to know the difference.

Dominant people take risks or exert control when they need to -- and by need to, I mean it benefits their goals and their charges, the combination of which lends itself to responsibility, not selfishness.

That is not how "bad boys" operate. They're out to prove something. They're just douchebags, a sub-genre of which is PUA's.
 
I used to be attracted to the stereotypical "bad boy" when I was younger, but thankfully now I've outgrown that crap. IMO, the attraction is trying to tame the bad boy. It's the challenge if you can be the one to tame him and make him fall in love with you.

Bad boys can be fun but are usually not ideal for a serious relationship.
 
I dunno. I would hardly consider myself a bad boy. Sure I do crazy stuff but I don't have the **** you attitude. I don't seem to have trouble finding women though. There's almost always some girl who has a crush on me and I'm not actively encouraging it.

I dunno why some women like me though, so I have no secrets to share. But it's not always bad boys.
 
tacomancer said:
I dunno. I would hardly consider myself a bad boy. Sure I do crazy stuff but I don't have the **** you attitude. I don't seem to have trouble finding women though. There's almost always some girl who has a crush on me and I'm not actively encouraging it.

I dunno why some women like me though, so I have no secrets to share. But it's not always bad boys.
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For some reason I always thought you were a gay lady.

@ the OP, what is a bad boy? Not all who appear bad, are unintelligent.

Normally, people keep strangers at a distance and don't start sharing until a bit of trust is established. Sometimes that might come over as bad.

Personally, rather a guy like that, with signs of a brain, who knows what's going on, than some pushover.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Nope, that's true, but they do display a quintessential trait of the larger species, which is a disregard for women. Therefore I don't think it's much of a leap to say this probably applies to one degree or another to most of their douchey cousins as well.

I would argue pretty much all douchbags are "betas," as you call it. As we have conversed about before, people who are well-adjusted and dominant feel no need to be douches. Their dominance does not need to be reinforced by fantasies of being immortal or having power over weaker people (and by weaker, I mean self-loathing); you're mistaking dominance with sociopathy, which is not surprising seeing that our society doesn't seem to know the difference.

Dominant people take risks or exert control when they need to -- and by need to, I mean it benefits their goals and their charges, the combination of which lends itself to responsibility, not selfishness.

That is not how "bad boys" operate. They're out to prove something. They're just douchebags, a sub-genre of which is PUA's.
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I think you are making these traits out to be more deliberate than they really are. I won't deny that there can be self-conscious cultural aspects involved in the "bad boy" persona in many cases. As has already been noted, pick up artists actually make deliberate use of them to confuse women who are drawn to that kind of thing.

However, where more generalized traits are concerned, "douchebags" or "bad boys" - defined here as being loud, obnoxious, and aggressive males with inflated egos, little in the way of empathy or concern for others, and a penchant for impulsive behavior without a lot of thought or planning behind it - generally tend to be that way more or less by nature. It is simply a sign of all the latent testosterone coursing through their systems.

That same testosterone does usually denote their "Alpha Male" status as well.

Likewise, I do think there is some truth to the idea that a lot of the women who fall for the charms of such men may in fact do so simply because they share certain traits in common with them. I've actually seen a few studies which suggest that the inclination to go for "bad boys" may very well be genetic, for instance.

That being said, though, regardless of these other factors, I don't think there can be much doubt that most women tend to find "bad boys" appealing on a purely sexual level. "Bad boys" and "douchebags" tend to be some of the most attractive and immediately desirable men on the market at any given time.

It simply happens to be the case that some women will act on that attraction, where others will not.
 
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Gathomas88 said:
I think you are making these traits out to be more deliberate than they really are. I won't deny that there can be self-conscious cultural aspects involved in the "bad boy" persona in many cases. As has already been noted, many pick up artists actually make deliberate use of them to confuse women who are drawn to that kind of thing.

However, where more generalized traits are concerned, "douchebags" or "bad boys" - defined here as being a loud, obnoxious, and aggressive males with an inflated ego, little in the way of empathy or concern for others, and a penchant for impulsive behavior without a lot of thought or planning behind it - generally tend to be that way more or less by nature. It is simply a sign of all the latent testosterone coursing through their systems.

That same testosterone does usually denote their "Alpha Male" status as well.

Likewise, I do think there is some truth to the idea that a lot of the women who fall for the charms of such men may in fact do so simply because they share much in common with them. I've actually seen some studies which suggest that much of the reason certain women seem to have an inclination to go for "bad boys" in the first place may very well be genetic, for instance.

That being said, though, regardless of these other factors, I don't think there can be much doubt that most women tend to find "bad boys" appealing on a purely sexual level. "Bad boys" and "douchebags" simply tend to be some of the most attractive and immediately desirable men on the market at any given time.

It simply happens to be the case that some women will act on that attraction, where others will not.
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I don't really see how it's possible to argue that in a society that provides such fertile ground for such behavior. I have known quite a number of young men who handle their testosterone in ways other than being idiots or douchebags -- even those who seem to have an insane amount of it to all appearances.

This is a society that has plenty of self-hating women who will reward that behavior. That alone is a good enough reason why these people exist, at least to the extent that they do. Not everyplace has this kind of culture, and thus these kinds of guys, in the way we do.

People who are idiots are simply idiots. You are arguing that people who endanger their own lives simply because of ego with no purpose are leaders. No, they're teachable moments and Darwin Awards, and they
are doing it because they are so insecure they can't stand when people aren't looking at them. Don't be ridiculous.

People who are douchebags are usually insecure and not very successful in society as a whole, at least not unless they are simultaneously extremely intelligent and selective about how and when they're douchebags, and when they are, they do it to the max. But that's a rare combination, and those people are called sociopaths, not "alpha males," while the former less intelligent variant is just a garden variety loser.

You haven't the faintest idea what dominance even is, for how much you talk about it. It doesn't really seem to compute with you, which I guess is expected -- the people who obsess over it most are those who don't get it. But even if you were actually right about that, then what you would be talking about is dominant people who are simultaneously screwed up in some way. So, same conclusion: screwed up people hang out with other screwed up people.

You also don't seem to grasp that people are not like cats who are in their mating cycle, even when it's been presented to you on a platter. People who've looked into this conclude that PUA's, who are really just a formalized type of "bad boy," which we have seen some form of in every generation, only attract people like themselves: people with issues.

That reflects my own experience in non-formal douchebaggery as well. "Bad boys" are men with issues, and they wind up with women with issues.

So, I don't know who on earth you hang out with, but if you actually see "women" as a whole attracted to (acting on it or not) losers and idiots as a rule, I think you ought to take a look at how you wound up in that kind of crowd.

But I don't actually think you see that. I think that's just the narrative of people you like to have in your head for your own comfort. Life is much simpler if you erase 90% of what makes people tick and try to simplify it down to a point where there's no longer stuff you can't answer.
 
It would probably be better if you focus on yourself. Just don't be a jerk with a Saint complex, and you'll be fine.
 
Fiddytree said:
It would probably be better if you focus on yourself. Just don't be a jerk with a Saint complex, and you'll be fine.
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Saint complex. That's perfect. :lol: I'm going to have to use that one.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
I don't really see how it's possible to argue that in a society that provides such fertile ground for such behavior. I have known quite a number of young men who handle their testosterone in ways other than being idiots or douchebags -- even those who seem to have an insane amount of it to all appearances.

This is a society that has plenty of self-hating women who will reward that behavior. That alone is a good enough reason why these people exist, at least to the extent that they do. Not everyplace has this kind of culture, and thus these kinds of guys, in the way we do.

People who are idiots are simply idiots. You are arguing that people who endanger their own lives simply because of ego with no purpose are leaders. No, they're teachable moments and Darwin Awards, and they are doing it because they are so insecure they can't stand when people aren't looking at them. Don't be ridiculous.

People who are douchebags are usually insecure and not very successful in society as a whole, at least not unless they are simultaneously extremely intelligent and selective about how and when they're douchebags, and when they are, they do it to the max. But that's a rare combination, and those people are called sociopaths, not "alpha males," while the former less intelligent variant is just a garden variety loser.
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There are asshole men, or, at the very least, men with a penchant for asshole behavior, pretty much everywhere. Our society is not in any sense unique in that regard.

As far as the "Darwinian" implications are concerned, you have to keep in mind that humanity's current circumstances are not the same as what would have existed for the vast majority of our history.

Today, being an impulsive and fearless hyper-aggressive jerk is generally a liability. When looking through the lens of our evolutionary past, however, it would not have been.

Those kinds of men would have been valuable, as they were willing to take risks, and therefore reap rewards, that other men would not. Likewise, this would have made them more attractive as potential mates, therefore increasing the probability that they would pass on their genes.

It simply happens to be the case that our species' mating instincts haven't quite caught up with its circumstances just yet.

This problem is further compounded by the rather "law of the jungle" approach to mating and courtship that has come to be adopted in our society in recent decades. While you are correct in pointing out that "douchebags" tend not to go very far in life, that generally is not apparent in their High School or College years, where women usually aren't looking to "settle down" anyway.

At that point in their lives, these kinds of men are basically at their peak. They tend to get positively absurd amounts of action as such.

You haven't the faintest idea what dominance even is, for how much you talk about it. It doesn't really seem to compute with you, which I guess is expected -- the people who obsess over it most are those who don't get it. But even if you were actually right about that, then what you would be talking about is dominant people who are simultaneously screwed up in some way. So, same conclusion: screwed up people hang out with other screwed up people.

You also don't seem to grasp that people are not like cats who are in their mating cycle, even when it's been presented to you on a platter. People who've looked into this conclude that PUA's, who are really just a formalized type of "bad boy," which we have seen some form of in every generation, only attract people like themselves: people with issues.

That reflects my own experience in non-formal douchebaggery as well. "Bad boys" are men with issues, and they wind up with women with issues.

So, I don't know who on earth you hang out with, but if you actually see "women" as a whole attracted to (acting on it or not) losers and idiots as a rule, I think you ought to take a look at how you wound up in that kind of crowd.

But I don't actually think you see that. I think that's just the narrative of people you like to have in your head for your own comfort. Life is much simpler if you erase 90% of what makes people tick and try to simplify it down to a point where there's no longer stuff you can't answer.
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Yeesh, calm down. :lol:

First off, as I pointed out before, a lot of this depends upon how one defines "losers," "bad boys," and "douchebags" in the first place.

We may not even have the same definition.

Secondly, I'm not questioning the assumption that like tends to attract like. I actually said otherwise. I'm simply pointing out that there are factors at play here beyond the simply psychological.

Honestly, the biggest among them is whether a person tends to favor a more long term mating strategy utilizing just a few partners, or the short term variety utilizing many.

Young women, and women who favor the more short term strategy in general, tend to be inclined to favor "bad boys." Older women, and women who favor the long term strategy - while they probably do still find many aspects of the bad boy persona appealing on a superficial level - will generally avoid them, as they smell all the other trouble entanglement with that type of man tends to entail.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Today, being an impulsive and fearless hyper-aggressive jerk is generally a liability. When looking through the lens of our evolutionary past, however, it would not have been.
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I got as far as this before I just hit my talking-reality-with-Gathomas limit.

Gathomas, you are aware we are a profoundly social, communal species and always have been, aren't you? And that we generally existed in rather small numbers?

It has NEVER been to the benefit of human evolution to be a hyper-aggressive asshole. That kind of crap got you kicked out of a tribe. And this runs right through some of our closer primate relatives too. Even bonobos will shun a rapist or an otherwise violent jerk, for example.

I know in your head you like to imagine manly men wrestling saber tooth cats barehanded and ordering around the starry-eyed wimmenz, but humans are not a caveman comic strip from the 1950's. In reality, we stayed the hell away from the big carnivores no matter how big our testicles were, and humans survived by profound cooperation because that's how you make a big brain count -- especially when you're slow and weak on your own.

Ok, my brain hemorrhage limit must be low today. I'm out.
 
James D Hill said:
Why are moody pricks who may or may not thrash on their ladies so popular with the ladies? I have never understood it. Have any of you? Why are moody jerks attractive to the ladies? Answers please.
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You know what - I thought I didn't understand this but now I do.

It's all about how you define nice.

Is nice being courteous? Following the law/rules all the time? Being funny and easy to get along with? Being aware of other people's needs?

#1) Some guys who ask this question actually proclaim their selves to be nice, but in reality, they might not be 'nice' in the way others would define 'nice': Maybe they're rude, conceited, boring, self centered. Maybe they're full of **** and claim they're nice but they're the biggest douche to walk the face of the earth.

#2) Maybe some of the guys who people think are 'bad boys' actually are decent, nice guys. It depends on who is defining 'nice' and what nice means. You can have a dangerous edge and be right on the line, but still 'nice' to your partner.

So now every time someone asks 'what about us nice guys' I'll ask them "What about you makes you think you're a nice guy?" And if they can't explain why they think they're nice then they might be completely wrong about how other people view them.

I think the most desired traits are: being interesting and someone who makes you feel good about yourself.

How they treat their mother might not matter. How they talk when you're not around doesn't matter so much, either. All the things that go into being 'nice' might not matter at all.

He's never gotten a speeding ticket and he doesn't curse: whoop de doo. But does he make you feel good, alive, excited, and like you're worth a damn. Would he defend you if you've been hurt unjustly? Would you be able to see yourself with him day in and day out - even when you're feeling like ****? Would he stand up for himself? Would he have interesting conversations with opinions and so forth or is he just a yawner pushover full of nothing.

Nice is such a subjective concept - it can mean anything from 'I'm good at smiling at people but on the weekends I'm a serial killer' and 'I'm boring as ****. I even put myself to sleep'
 
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