The 'Bad Boy' question

I need an outlet. This world is so full of things to get a mind moving that every now and then, ya just need to dump what's in your head out and try and make it form some kind of intelligent picture. I've attempted to do this blog idea before, but have never been able to consistently do it. Now, again, I find myself with an overabundance of mental images that need to be written down simply to make room for the other thoughts begging for attention.

It's interesting, the things that find their way to the forefront of our thoughts. I'm ruminating today on a topic that was brought up to me a short while ago by two of my very good friends who happen to be of the male persuasion. (Not much of a surprise since most of my friends are men.) The topic I'm caught up in is very simple and so incredibly complicated at the same time. It is a question nearly everyone has asked multiple times in their lives: What in the world do women want?

Many people have tried to decode the mystery that is women. When I went to look for books on the topic, just so I could give my friends an idea of where to turn for "professional" advice, most of the source material I found was focused on a sub-topic: What women want sexually. It was also ironic to me that a good deal of them were written by men. Insert confused look here.

I decided to ask some questions of my own. I asked my friends what confused them most about women. They were given a limit of three things that confused them more than anything else about women. From there, I would do my best to answer their questions in the most educated way I could...using my own experience and calling on the few girlfriends and female family members I have to answer as best they could.

It's interesting to me that the question that was asked the most was: "Why do women constantly want the bad boys and not the good men?" I have been asked this question so many times over the years that I have a standard answer: "Girls like bad boys. Women like good men." There is a fundamental difference here that I want to expound on.

The answer to why women want bad boys and not good men can mostly be summed up in my standard answer, but I've found that it leaves an even more confused look on a guys face when I give that answer. Therefore, let me explain.

At some point, most girls find themselves fascinated with the bad boy. There are very few exceptions to this rule. We all see the big muscled, tattooed, your-mom-would-faint-if-you-brought-him-home kind of guy and think, "Yes, please!" There is a stupidly strange draw towards a boy who lives on the edge and pushes the boundaries of society's acceptable norm.

It happens over and over again. The bad boy rolls up in his truck or on his motorcycle and instantly grabs the attention of anyone in the area, but especially the girls. He doesn't pay much attention to anyone because he's just there to do his own thing. He doesn't care what people think. He doesn't care what people say. To the good girl, and even some of the more straight laced boys, he is the epitome of cool. Why? Because he appears to be free.

Now, girls who are really diggin' the 'Bad Boy' image are generally very young. They are inexperienced in the ways of the world. Read that: she hasn't lived enough yet to be even slightly jaded. She doesn't know what to expect in a 'Real World' situation and doesn't know what typically comes with a bad boy situation.

Young girls still believe in the Disney version of fairy tales. They believe that if they are just patient and loving and give the bad boy the attention he must not have gotten throughout his life, he'll fall in love with her and change his wicked ways and they'll ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not discounting the idea that it's possible for that outcome to occur. I'm just saying it's highly unlikely...and young girls don't know that yet. After their first encounter with a bad boy, they soon find out.

Somewhere along the way from early teenage years to the mid to late twenties, most women enter the dating world. There are very few exceptions. In the beginning, girls like the boys that are dangerous. They take us out of our protected worlds and show us theirs. The newness and the difference between  theirs and ours is so appealing! We all grow up with rules and regulations. That's because most dads know about bad boys. (Most dads have, at one point or another, either been the bad boy or wanted to be the bad boy._ Dating a boy that mom and dad don't approve of gives us a thrill.

When we become older, the reasons change. Throughout our teenage years, we date (or don't date, like me), and we experience the harsh teacher that is life. Teenage romances rarely end in happily ever after. For some girls, choosing the 'Bad Boy' becomes less about the dangerous aspect and more about the idea that we don't deserve any better.

I knew a girl once who ended up in this very situation. She didn’t date through her teenage years, not because she didn’t want too, but for reasons neither of us has ever been able to figure out. She was cute, she was a sweetheart, she was kind to everyone around her and made friends wherever she went. Still, she went on maybe two dates throughout high school. For a girl who’d dreamed of one day going to prom and enjoying that rite of passage associated with moving from one stage of life into the next, the disappointment caused her to believe there was something wrong with her.

On top of that, the boys she went to school with were sometimes unkind. She and I had discussions about the things she’d endured and I couldn’t figure out why she’d had to endure them. What this did was cause her to think she was ugly and not worth any real effort from anyone worth wanting. She’d see good men and think they’d never want her. She couldn’t give me a real reason, but she continually said it.

When she was 19, she started dating a man who was five years her senior. She met him through a mutual friend, but had already heard rumors about him through people she went to church with. She had decided that she wouldn’t pass judgment on him, but give him the benefit of the doubt. When they met, he was on his way to an AA meeting. The man was a recovering drug addict who’d been in rehab seven times before they’d started dating.

I bet you can guess where this is going…

She did the girl thing. You know the one. The one where the girl thinks that she’s enough and that her love can change him and save him? Yep. That’s the one. She fell for that ruse and she fell hard. Up to that point, she’d been a virgin. After she met him, that was history.

It didn’t take long for him to fall back into his addiction. It had such a tight grip on him that he couldn’t give it up. He started with weed. He’d smoke both at home and at her apartment. In the beginning he was around a lot. As he started getting deeper and deeper into drugs, he became scarce. She found herself spending time at his house with his mom and sister and he come in to use her, eat something, and then leave to go find his next fix. The man was a crystal meth addict and he had it bad. Still, she managed to stay for nearly a year. That choice resulted in an unplanned pregnancy that shattered her life for quite a few years.

I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t she just leave him? Why would she stick around a guy who clearly didn’t care about her? Well, here’s the short version:

She didn’t think she was worth anything more than what he gave her anymore.

I KNOW! Doesn’t make sense, huh? Well, girls are complicated. My friend went to see her mom’s parents and gain a little perspective after she found out she was pregnant. She told me she sat down with her grandmother and had a conversation that went something like this:

Gmom: Why would you stay with someone who treats you worse than most people treat their dogs? (Her grandmother is a pretty straight shooter and doesn’t sugar coat things.)

My friend: (after several seconds of thinking in which Gmom patiently waited for her granddaughters answer) I guess I figured no one else would want me. I’m used merchandise.

I kid you not. Those were the words she used. How stupid is that, right? The point is that he treated her like she was worthless, so she felt worthless. He treated her like she was an option not a priority, and she became an option. She accepted less than what she was worth because she could no longer see that she was worth more.

This is the cycle that dating ‘Bad Boys’ creates. We are poorly treated and decide that the ‘Bad Boys’ are all we are worth anymore. In many instances, most women don’t even see that. They don’t correlate the way they were treated with the appeal of the bad boy in their later years.

Sometimes, a woman can find her own way out of that hole. My friend spent many years in self-reflection figuring out why she'd allowed that to happen and how she could avoid that pitfall in the future. Most women, most people actually, don't have the courage to take a look at themselves in that way much less attempt to grow from those types of experiences.

Now, what does all of that information translate for the nice guy in the most simple of terms? It means, very simply, that reaching the girl you want and convincing her to take a chance on you is going to be very difficult. It's not impossible for a nice guy to win over a girl who, in the past, preferred bad boys. It's just going to be like running a marathon without training for it first: difficult, but not impossible.

The bad boys have conditioned us to be wary of men. We come to expect a certain behavior from the men in our lives. When a nice guy decides to pay attention to us, their 'nice guy' behavior is foreign to us. It makes us scared. We're used to a man who is selfish and unconcerned about us other than the satisfaction we can give him. Nice guys are strange. They care what happens to us. They care what we think. They want to know what we're feeling. They don't treat us like an option. They make us their priority.

I'm sure most of you, if not all of you, know of nice guys in your life. Either you have a dad, brothers, friends, or coworkers who are nice guys. They have wives and children and put effort into taking care of their families. They don't try to hide their hearts in the bravado of youth. They know that they are men now and they step up to the plate to make sure their families are happy and know that they're loved. As single women, we sometimes find it hard to imagine that there's a nice guy out there for us...much less what we'll do with him if we can manage to snag his interest.

I was recently introduced to the musical 'The Man of La Mancha'. I vaguely knew the story of Don Quixote, but hadn't really remembered much other than the Wishbone episode. I was pleasantly surprised with the story line and the thought process it provoked.

Don Quixote is a crazy man. He sees average every day things as extraordinary. The first introduction we have to the crazy old man is when he and his squire are riding on a great crusade and come upon a windmill. Don Quixote doesn't see a windmill. He sees a giant sent by an enchanter to destroy him. He rather comically attacks the thing while Sancho Panza tries to convince him that he's attacking an inanimate object. The windmill soundly defeats Don Quixote and they journey on.

They come to an inn that is full of some rough traveling men and a few prostitutes. The main prostitute is also the kitchen help. Her name is Aldonza. She sings a song about all men being the same and none of them wanting her for more than what they pay her to do.

When Don Quixote encounters the run down inn, he doesn't see an inn. He sees a castle. When he meets Aldonza for the first time, he is captivated by the beautiful creature he sees and refuses to believe that her name is actually Aldonza. He tells her it's much to common place for such a beautiful woman. He refuses to call her by her given name and instead calls her Dulcinea, which means beloved or woman of one's dreams. He saw a common prostitute as a princess and made almost embarrassing gestures to secure her good favor.

When the movie is over, and Don Quixote has died, Aldonza and Sancho Panza are talking outside his home. Sancho refers to her as Aldonza, but Don Quixote had such an influence on her that she tells him her name is Dulcinea. There's no definite story about what happened to her, but I can imagine for myself.

The good guy that was Don Quixote saw the world as it should be. He saw Dulcinea as she could be. He refused to believe what anyone else told him about her, including Dulcinea herself. He believed so fiercely that she was good woman that, in the end, he convinced her of  it.

I like to think that Dulcinea went from Don Quixote's house a completely changed woman. A woman who believed that she was better than what her circumstances left her with. A woman who had potential to be just as every other woman. A woman worth loving...because Don Quixote saw it in her.

I believe that is true for most women. If a good man is brave enough to see a good woman as she really is and not as she sees herself and thinks the world sees her, in the end, he will prevail. In the end, he will be able to convince her that she is worth a good man. In the end, she will love him more deeply than she ever knew she could. She will be unafraid to let him into her heart and know her on a level she never dared let anyone get close too. She will tear down the walls just for him and give him her whole heart.

So, what can you take away from this? Be the good man. Don't give up. She's worth it. With your help, she'll see that too.